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Epochs of Modern History 



EDWARD III 



BY THE 



REV. W. WARBURTON, M. A. 



LATE FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD; AND 
HER MAJESTY'S SENIOR INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS 






WITH THREE MAPS 



NEW YOEK: 
CHAKLES SCRIBNEB'S SONS, 

1887. 



$ 






By Thtansfflt 
D 22 W? 



PREFACE. 



The reign of Edward III. was long, and crowded 
with events : little more than a sketch of it in its 
inner and outer aspects is to be looked for in a book 
like this, which, moreover, professes only to repro- 
duce and epitomize what has been already brought 
to light by the original research of others. It may 
be well, therefore, to mention the names of a few 
out of many writers whose works should be studied 
by any who wish to fill up these outlines with more 
thorough and detailed information. 

There is a remarkable dearth of cotemporary 
historical authorities for the early part of the 14th 
century. Froissart did not reach manhood till it 
had passed its meridian. But he founded the earlier 
portion of his History on the Chronicles of Jehan le 



vi. Preface. 

Bel, a canon of Liege, who actually served in the 
Scottish campaign of 1327. This work has recently 
been discovered, and is edited by M. Poulain, Brus- 
sels, 1863. Froissart's work is valuable from its 
minuteness and simplicity; but he approaches his 
subject from the point of view of external picturesque- 
ness, and cares little for the moral aspects and deeper 
social and political movements of the epoch. The 
Rolls of Parliament, the treaties, proclamations, and 
correspondence collected in Rymer's Foedera on the 
one hand, and the " Canterbury Tales* ' and " Vision 
of Piers Ploughman" on the other, are a welcome 
and necessary supplement to his courtly and chivalric 
narrative. In the great Florentine History of the 
Villani brothers will be found many important, though 
incidental, notices of the Battle of Creci and subse- 
quent English invasions of France, and of the internal 
condition of that country. The political history of 
the latter end of Edward III.'s reign is described 
with extraordinary vividness, though strong party 
bias, in a remarkably outspoken, and evidently co- 
temporary, chronicle — a translation of w r hich exists 
in the Harleian Library, reproduced in the 22nd vol. 
of ArchcBologia. (The original has been lately found, 
and is printed in the Rolls series). The cotempo- 
rary Chronicles of Robert of Avesbury (" Wonderful 



Preface. vii. 

Deeds of Edward III.," Hearne) and those of 
Knyghton Canon of Leicester (Twysden's " Decern 
Scriptores"), and of Walsingham, Historiographer 
Royal ("Historia Anglicana," compiled from the 
annals of the Abbey of St. Albans), which appeared 
in the following century, contain many important and 
interesting details. To the above should be added 
"The Poem of the Black Prince/' by the Herald 
Chandos, edited and translated for the Roxburghe 
Club by the Rev. H. O. Coxe, Librarian of the Bod- 
leian. Joshua Barnes, who lived in the reign of 
James II., has left a ponderous folio on the life of 
King Edward III., which, though written in the 
spirit of a determined panegyrist, and disfigured by 
some puerile absurdities, is nevertheless a very val- 
uable contribution to the history of the period. 

Of later writers, it may be as well to inform or 
remind the young student that much important in- 
formation on the political and social aspects of the 
time is to be found in Hallam's "Middle Ages," 
Milman's "History of Latin Christianity/' and 
Hook's "Lives of the Archbishops. ' ' For the Black 
Death, Professor Rogers' " History of Prices" should 
be consulted, and two articles contributed to the 2nd 
and 3rd vols, of the "Fortnightly Review" by Mr. 



viii. Preface. 

Seebohm ; for the history of Wiclif, Professor Shir- 
ley's "Fasciculi Zizaniorum" ; for the social and 
domestic habits of the epoch, Mr. Wright's " Homes 
of Other Days;" for its literature, M. Taine's bril- 
liant Lectures. For the whole reign the latest au- 
thority is Mr. William Longman's " Life and Times 
of Edward III.," to which I am largely indebted, — a 
work equally remarkable for its justice, its variety of 
interest, and its completeness as a picture of the 
times. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Introduction 1-5 



FIRST DECADE, A. D. 1327-1337. 

CHAPTER I. 

Circumstances attending the accession of Edward III., 6-8. Peace 
with France, 8. Raid of the Scots into the Northern Coun- 
ties, 8-13. Peace with Scotland, 14. Murder of Edward II., 
16. Marriage of Edward III., 16. He claims the Crown of 
France, 17. Execution of the Earl of Kent, 18. Fall and 
execution of Mortimer, 19. Measures for the preservation of 
the Peace in England, 23. 

CHAPTER II. 

Edward Balliol invades Scotland, 26. Wins the Battle of Dupplin 
Moor, is crowned King, 27, 28 ; and expelled, 29. Edward 
III. invades Scotland, 30. Battle of Halidon Hill, 31. Pro- 
longed hostilities with Scotland, 32. Claims of Edward III. 
to the French Crown, 35. Position of the King of France ; 
Battle of Cassel, 38. Edward does homage for Guienne, 38. 
Friendly and unfriendly relations between England and 
France, 41. Policy of France, 42. The French strike the 
first blow, 44. 

IX 



x Contents. 

CHAPTER III. 

Map of Europe in the Fourteenth Century; England, Ireland, 
Scotland, 45. France; Spain, 46. Provence; Sicily, 46, 47. 
Papal States, 48. Turks. 50. Russia, 50. Denmark, 51. 
The Empire, 52,53. Swiss Confederation, 54. Flemings, 55. 
Wool staples, 57. Final preparations for the War, 58. Battle 
of Cadsand, 61. 



SECOND DECADE, A. D. 1337-1347. 
CHAPTER I. 

Parliament sanctions war with France, 63. First invasion of 
France ; the King sails for Flanders, 65. Difficulties with his 
allies, 67. Conference at Coblentz, 68. Siege of Cambrai, 
70. Edward marches into France, 71. His correspondence 
with the Pope, 73, 74. Returns to England for money, 75. 
Second invasion of France, 80. Battle of Sluys, 81. Siege of 
Tournai, 82. King returns to England and impeaches Strat- 
ford, 84, 85. Breaks faith with Parliament, 88, 89. 

CHAPTER II. 

Affairs of Scotland, 90. Siege of Dunbar ; of Perth, 91 ; of Stir- 
ling, 92. Affairs of Brittany, 93. Relations of England with 
Papal See, 100. Round Table at Windsor, 101. Murder of 
Van Arteveldt, 103. The English in Aquitaine and Brittany, 
104. Siege of Auberoche and Angouleme, 105. 

CHAPTER III. 

Third invasion of France by the King in person, 107. He 
marches through Normandy to Poissy, 108. Crosses the 
Seine, in ; and the Somme, 112. Wins Battle of Creci, 114. 
Sits down before Calais, 121. England invaded by the Scots, 
122. Battle of Neville's Cross, 123. Siege of Aiguillon, 125 ; 
of Calais, 127. 



Contents. xi 



THIRD DECADE, A. D. 1347-1357. 

CHAPTER I. 

Calais colonised, 134. Edward declines the Imperial Crown, 135. 
State of England, 136. Of France, 138. Black Death, 140. 
Its origin, 140. Causes, 142. Nature, 143. The Flagellants, 
145. Progress of the Plague, 146. Social effects, 147. Pro- 
ceedings in Parliament, 151, 

CHAPTER II. 

Battle of l'Espagnols-sur-mer ; Death of King Philip of France, 
and accession of John, 155. Triple invasion (the fourth) of 
France, 158. Edward makes friends with the King of Na- 
varre, 158. Inroad of the Scotch; Burnt Candlemas, 160; 
and return invasion of Scotland, 161. First French campaign 
of the Prince of Wales, 162. 

CHAPTER III. 

King John of France summons his States-General, 163. Second 
campaign of the Prince of Wales, 166. Battle of Poitiers, 167. 
King John carried to London, 176. 



FOURTH DECADE, A. D. 1357-1367. 

CHAPTER I. 

Condition of France after the Battle of Poitiers, 178. Meeting of 
the States-General at Paris ; Etienne Marcel, 180. The 
Jacquerie, 183. Intrigues of Marcel with the King of Na- 
varre, 186. Edward's fifth invasion of France, 189. Peace 
of Bretigni, 190. King John ransomed and restored to 
France, 192. The Companies, 193. King John returns to 
England, and dies there. 194. 



xii Contents. 

CHAPTER II. 

Prince of Wales married ; created Duke of Aquitaine, 195. Du- 
guesclin, 195. Settlement of affairs in Brittany, 196. Spanish 
Campaign of the Prince of Wales, 197. Battle of Navarrete 
and restoration of Pedro the Cruel, 203. Sickness and 
retreat of the Prince, 205. 

CHAPTER III. 
Domestic affairs of England, 206. Legislation for Ireland, 211. 



FIFTH DECADE, A. D. 1367-1377. 

CHAPTER I. 

Splendour and decay of Edward III.'s reign, 215. Government 
of the Black Prince in Aquitaine, 216. Pedro the Cruel de- 
feated, 220; and slain, 221. Recommencement of war with 
France, 222. Massacre of Limoges. 224. Black Prince re- 
turns to England, 226. Sea fight off Rochelle, 228. Siege of 
Thouars, and failure of expedition to relieve it, 229. Last 
great invasion of France by Duke of Lancaster, 230. Review 
of the condition of France, 232. 

CHAPTER II. 

Internal affairs of England, 235. Parliamentary parties, 236. 
State of the Navy, 237. The Church is taxed, 238. Death of 
Queen Philippa; the " Good Parliament," 239. Position and 
political influence of the Black Prince and of the Duke of 
Lancaster, 239. Death of the Black Prince, 243. Prince 
Richard acknowledged as Heir-Apparent, 244. 

CHAPTER III. 

William of Wykeham, 246. Wiclif; the Mendicants, 247. Death 
of Edward III., 255. 



Contents. xiii 



CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 

PART I. 

Character of Edward III., 256. State of education, 257. Char- 
acteristics of the reign, 262. 

PART II. 

Social condition of the period, 264. Domestic habits, food, and 
dress of the people, 268. 

PART III. 

Language and literature, 274. Vision of Piers Ploughman, 278. 
The Canterbury Tales, 279. 

Index 283 



PEDIGREES. 

England, Brittany and Castile * at beginning. 

France, Artois, and Blois to face p. $6. 

Empire, Popes, and Scotland . . . . " p. 52. 



MAPS. 

Europe in the 14th Century .... at beginning. 

France after the Peace of Bretigni . . • to fact p. 190 



France, illustrative of the chief) 
Campaigns of the War. i 



at end. 



CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY. 



A.D. 

1327. Deposition of Edward II., and accession of Edward III. 

(Jan. 29). The Scots invade the Northern Counties. 
Murder of Edward II. (Sept. 21). 

1328. Independence of Scotland recognized by treaty (March 17). 

Death of Charles IV. of France ; Edward III. claims the 
French Crown. Philip of Valois succeeds to it. Battle 
of Cassel: Robert Bruce dies, and his son David II. is 
crowned at Scone (Nov. 23). 

1329. Lancaster's Abortive attempt against Mortimer. Edward 

III. does homage for Guienne. 

1330. Earl of Kent executed. Mortimer seized and put to death 

(Nov. 29). The Queen imprisoned. 

1332. Edward Balliol invades Scotland (Aug. 7); wins the Battle 

of Dupplin Moor (Aug. 12); is crowned King of Scot- 
land (Sept. 27); and expelled (Dec. 25). 

1333. Edward III.'s first invasion of Scotland. Battle of Halidon 

Hill (July 19). Balliol reinstated : does homage to 
Edward III. 

1334. Balliol again forced to fly from Scotland. 
xv 






xvi Chronological Summary. 

A.D. 

I 337- Edward III. assumes the title of King of France. 

1339. His first invasion of France. Siege of Cambrai : the King's 

return. 

1340. His second invasion of France. Battle of Sluys (June 24) 

Siege of Tournai. Truce concluded (Sept. 25), 

1341. Impeachment of Stratford : last instance of the trial of a 

Bishop " by his peers." 

1342. Siege of Hennebon. Edward invades Brittany. 

1343. Fresh truce with France. The Earl of Salisbury crowned 

King of Man. 

1344. Earl of Derby's campaign in Guienne. First gold coin 

struck in England. 

1345. Murder of Van Arteveldt. 

1346. Edward's third invasion of France. Battle of Creci (Aug. 

26). Siege of Calais begun. Battle of Neville's Cross 
(Oct. 12). 

1347. Calais taken. 

1348. The Black Death. 

1349. Right of self-taxation asserted by Parliament. Statute of 

Labourers. Attempt to recover Calais. 

1350. Battle of l'Espagnols-sur-mer (Aug. 29). Death of Philip 

VI., and accession of John II., of France. 

1352. Statute of Treasons. 

x 353- Statute of the Staple. 

1355. First campaign of the Black Prince in the South of France. 
Edward III.'s fourth invasion of France. He is recalled 
by the siege of Berwick. 

I 35^- Second campaign of the Black Prince. Battle of Poitiers, 
and capture of King John of France (Sept. 19). 



Chronological Summary. xvii. 

A.D. 

1358. Outbreak of the Jacquerie in France. 

1359. Edward III.'s fiftn invasion of France. Siege of Rheims. 

1360. Siege of Paris: Peace of Bretigni (May 8). Liberation of 

King John of France. That Kingdom overrun by "the 
Companies.'' 

1361. Second Outbreak of the Plague. 

1362. Pleadings ordered to be in the English language. The 

Prince of Wales is created Duke of Aquitaine, and 
marries the Fair Maid of Kent. 

1363. King of France returns to England, and dies, April 8. 

Charles V. (the Wise) succeeds him. 

1364. Settlement of the affairs of Brittany on the death of Charles 

of Blois. 

1365. The refusal of the " tribute " claimed by Urban V. is de- 

fended by Wiclif. 

1367. Statute of Kilkenny. Invasion of Spain by the Black 
Prince. Victory of Navarrete (April 3). 

1369. The Prince is summoned to Paris, and King Edward III. 

resumes the title of King of France. Third and last 
outbreak of the Plague. Death of Queen Philippa. 

1370. Massacre at Limoges. 

1372. Sea-fight off Rochelle (June 23). Edward III.'s sixth and 

last invasion of France. 

1373. French expedition of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. 

1376. The" Good Parliament." The Black Prince dies (June 8). 
Intrigues of the Duke of Lancaster. 

I 377« Prince Richard formally invested as successor to his grand- 
father. Death of Edward III. (June 21). 



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Memorandum on the Money of the Period, 

From the time of Henry I. to that of Edward I. the pound ster- 
ling was legally identical with the pound of silver, 240 silver coins, 
or pennies, each coin being one pennyweight. Under Edward I. 
the pound sterling and the lb. weight first parted company, the 
beginning of a system which gave rise to much hardship to the 
poor, uncertainty to commerce, and temptation to kings. Edward 
III. first introduced a gold coinage (gold having previously been 
interchanged, like any other commodity, by weight), and this gave 
him further opportunities of altering the pound sterling at his 
pleasure, for the value of the gold money had at one time to be 
adjusted to the value of the silver, and that of the silver to that of 
the gold, at another. Thus, in the course of twenty-five years the 
lb. weight of gold represented 15/. in silver money, then 13/. 3^. 
4d. t and then 15/. again. The lb. weight of silver was coined into 
243 pennies in Edward I.'s reign, subsequently into 270, and lastly 
into 300. It is needless to observe what perplexity these changes 
introduce into all calculations of prices and comparisons of the 
relative value of money at different times, even in the same reign. 
In large money accounts within the kingdom the pound sterling is 
the unit most frequently named, but it was employed only as 
" money of account," being unrepresented by a single coin. Next 
came the mark, worth 13s. 40*., then the shilling, both also money 
of account, for the first twelve penny shillings pieces were coined 
by Henry VIII. Edward III. issued the first groat or great coin, 
being the largest in use, and passing current for four pennies — 
silver pennies, for no copper was coined by authority till the reign 



xx. Money of the Period. 

of James I. The first gold coin which Edward III. issued was the 
"florence" or florin, of the value of 6s. He afterwards coined 
nobles, rose nobles, as they were called from being stamped with a 
rose, of half the value of the mark. In international transactions 
the unit most frequently employed is the gold florin of Florence, 
equivalent to the gold crown (escu d' or) of France, the value of 
which we may infer with tolerable certainty from the fact that it was 
the recognized equivalent of Edward III.'s half-florin, or 3J. 

No two authorities are agreed as to the figure which should 
be employed as a multiplier in order to bring the moneys of the 
fourteenth century up to their equivalents in value, that is, in 
purchasing power, in the money of the present day. It probably 
lies between twelve and fifteen. 



EDWARD THE THIRD. 



A.D. 1327. 



INTR OD UCTION. 

Edward III. was King of England for a little more 
than fifty years, having been proclaimed 
January 24, 1327, and dying June 21, 1377. 

The backbone of the story of his reign and times is 
the great Continental war. 

This war, though taxing to the utmost the resources of 
England and France, and illustrated by many brilliant 
actions of which our countrymen are still justly proud, 
was ultimately indecisive, and unfruitful in direct re- 
sults. 

In its external aspects it was less like an international 
struggle in which great issues were involved and impor- 
tant principles at stake, than one of those splendid tour- 
naments in which this, the golden age of chivalry, took 
delight. Preparations are made on a magnificent scale ; 
the contending parties defile, under the eyes of innumer- 
able eager spectators, into the lists ; with the blazonry of 
shield and surcoat, the waving of plume and pennon, the 
blare of trumpet and clarion. Defiances are inter- 
changed, and after many a ceremonious delay and pass- 
ing of heralds to and fro, the champions encounter furi- 
ously in the shock of battle. But when one of the com- 
batants has unhorsed his adversary and borne him to the 
ground, the victor, instead of slaughtering or perma- 

B 



2 Introduction. 

nently disabling his prostrate foe, suffers him to rise and 
bathe his bruises, to call for a fresh horse and lance, and 
renew the contest. At nightfall, to complete the parallel, 
the interest slackens, the combatants depart, the specta- 
tors disperse, and no more substantial results remain 
from the splendid and costly pageant, than broken heads 
and broken lances and reputations lost and won. 

Nevertheless, though of secondary importance in the 
history of the time, the war will unavoidably occupy the 
greatest amount of space in the following pages ; and its 
leading events, if they do not suggest, at least fall in 
with, the attempt to distribute the fifty years of the reign 
into five clearly defined periods of ten years each. 

The first decade is marked at its commencement by 

the formal conclusion of a peace between 

a.d. 1327- England and France, and it terminates with 

the ripening of the quarrel between the two 

nations, and the completion of the preparations on both 

sides for war. 

The next period of ten years opens with the first inva- 
sion of France, and winds up with the fourth 
a d. 1337- anc [ greatest invasion, which resulted in the 

x 347- 

victory of Creci and the surrender of Calais. 
The beginning of the third decade finds a forced ces- 
sation of hostilities throughout Europe, in 
a.d. 1347- consequence of the ravages of the Black 
Death ; and its conclusion is marked by the 
battle of Poitiers and the capture of the French King. 
The fourth period commences with an indirect conse- 
quence of the war — the outbreak of the Jac- 
a.d. x 357- querie in France ; and takes us down to the 
battle of Navarrete and the reinstatement of 
the King of Spain by the Black Prince. 

The last ten years of the reign - are marked by a series 



Introduction. 3 

of reverses and disasters, commencing with the illness of 
the Black Prince, his war tax and consequent 
unpopularity in his French duchy ; and end- AD - *3 6 7- 

ing with the loss of almost all the territories 
which the English had previously possessed, or won dur- 
ing the war, in France. 

The external history of the whole epoch, so far as its 
most conspicuous actors were concerned, thus returns, as 
it were, upon itself; and this is equally true of its several 
portions. At the end of every ten years or so, a great 
and apparently decisive battle is fought, but the general 
aspect of affairs is scarcely altered by the event. The 
same negotiations and counter-negotiations, the same 
diplomatic thrusts and parries, the same menaces and 
courtesies are renewed ; and after £.11 we hardly seem to 
advance a step, any more than in a dream, towards a 
practical result. A good deal of this is doubtless trace- 
able to the character of the English King himself. His 
reign was for a long time great and prosperous, in spite 
of extravagant expenditure, shortsighted legislation, and 
vacillating foreign policy ; because, by his personal 
prowess, liberality and splendour, his ready tact, inces- 
sant activity, and marvellous good fortune, he carried 
his people with him, enlisted their sympathy, and com- 
manded their admiration. But, unlike his grandfather 
the great Edward I., he lived and laboured for glory and 
ambition, not for practical or permanent objects. His 
work and influence were personal and evanescent. No 
sooner does his vigour begin to decline and his busy and 
brilliant individuality to fade away out of the foreground, 
than disasters of various forms come thronging in, and 
gradually take possession of the scene. 

France, though passing through a terrible agony, and 
apparently the greatest sufferer by the long struggle, was 



4 Introduction. 

in reality the chief gainer in the end, for her kings were 
guided throughout by a consistent hereditary policy which 
made them keep the single object in view of extinguish- 
ing the half, or more than half, independent fiefs of the 
Crown, and thus consolidating a vast nominal dominion 
into a compact and united sovereignty. 

The Emperor too had a policy quite independent of 
the dynastic struggle in which he was so long engaged ; 
a policy which brought him into sympathy with the as- 
pirations of the whole German race after social and reli- 
gious freedom ; — the development, namely, of the sources 
of wealth, in trade, enterprise, and political liberty, and 
the emancipation of himself and his subjects from the 
tyranny of the Vatican. He recognized kindred senti- 
ments in the English people, and at first entered warmly 
into the English alliance. He withdrew from it in de- 
spair only when it became evident that local jealousies 
would make it impossible to carry out his project of so 
combining the power of England and of the Empire as 
to compel the submission of the Pope, and the recogni- 
tion by France of the claims of Edward III. Charles 
IV., who succeeded Lewis in 1347, and was crowned 
Emperor in 1354, took no part in European politics. He 
was in fact a very good ruler of his own kingdom of Bo- 
hemia, but he left the interests of the Empire to take care 
of themselves. 

The anarchic condition of the far East of Europe be- 
gan, towards the close of this epoch, to assume shape and 
consistency by the growing importance of Moscow, and 
its recognition as a centre of national life and national 
aspirations for Tartar-ridden Russia ; as well as by the 
union of the kingdoms of Poland and Hungary under 
the sceptre of Louis the Great. All along that monarch's 
South-Eastern frontier the Crescent gleamed, for North- 



Introduction. 5 

crn Greece and Servia and Wallachia were subdued and 
occupied by the Janissaries of Sultan Amurath the First, 
who had already established the long enduring dominion 
of the Turk on the ruins of the Roman Empire of the 
East. 

On the northern and southern shores of Europe, this 
was the day of wealthy and powerful trading republics. 
The rising communities on the Baltic as well as on the 
Tuscan and Adriatic seaboards enriched themselves by 
the struggles (to the parties themselves worse than un- 
productive) of the greater powers, and became the bank- 
ers, carriers, purveyors, and clothiers, of the civilized 
world. 

But the main historical interest and importance of the 
epoch are to be sought below the surface ; in the first 
beginnings of the great religious revolution, which, 
though it broke up the nominal unity of Christendom, 
conferred on whole nations the inestimable boon of free 
access to God, and of a faith in harmony with reason ; — 
they are to be sought in the parallel advance of popular 
institutions, commercial enterprise, and original litera- 
ture ; in the decay of feudalism and chivalry, with the 
simultaneous upgrowth of a great middle class, and a 
multitude of new ideas and new social and political re- 
lations which in their progress and expansion have largely 
contributed to the formation and development of the Eu- 
rope of to-day. All these points will be touched upon, 
more or less in detail, in the following pages, though 
England will naturally occupy the foreground, and her 
history determine the greater or less amount of promi- 
nence to be given to contemporary continental events. 



Edward the Third. A. D. 



FIRST DECADE. 

A. D. 1327-1337. 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM THE KING'S ACCESSION TO THE FALL OF 
MORTIMER. 

The new reign began inauspiciously. The young King 
was a boy of fourteen, the son and namesake of a 
sovereign deposed for his folly and vice ; from 
Accession of whom he inherited the legacy of a smoulder- 
ing quarrel with Scotland, and another with 
France, a chronic rebellion in Ireland, and a thinned, 
half-starved, depressed, and miserable population at 
home. 

His mother, born Isabel of France, and one of the 
most odious characters in English history, having deserted 
her wretched consort, took up her residence, with the heir 
of the kingdom, in a foreign capital ; and there contrived 
an invasion of England which resulted in the dethrone- 
ment of the reigning King, and, ultimately, in his cold- 
blooded assassination. Her chief aider and abettor in 
this undertaking was Roger Mortimer, an expatriated 
rebel against her husband's authority, with whom she 
formed an intimacy the nature of which is hardly doubt- 
ful ; and who, by the successful issue of the enterprise, 
found himself in a position wherein he was able for a time 
to defy the laws, and gratify to his heart's content its 
three ruling passions of covetousness, vanity, and vindic- 
tiveness. 



1327. "Resignation" of Edward the Second. 7 

At the time when Edward III. was proclaimed, his 
unhappy father lay a prisoner in Kenilworth Castle. As 
the young King refused to accept the crown without the 
sanction and good-will of his predecessor, the farce was 
enacted of sending a Parliamentary deputation to Kenil- 
worth, to receive the " voluntary " resignation of the fallen 
monarch. When the commissioners arrived, he was led 
in to meet them in a plain black gown, and, the object of 
their coming having been explained, he wept and said. 
" It grieves me much that I have deserved so little of my 
people, and I humbly beg pardon of all present; but 
since it cannot be otherwise, I thank you for choosing my 
eldest son to succeed me." The steward of the royal 
household then broke his staff of office, as was custom- 
ary on a king's death ; proclamation was made that all 
people were released from their allegiance to "Edward of 
Carnarvon," and the commissioners returned to London, 
amid the rejoicings of the populace, to assist at the coro- 
nation of Edward III. 

The King's youth and the unscrupulous ambition of 
Isabel and the partner of her guilt made him a passive 
instrument in their hands. They assumed a more than 
royal authority, appropriated to themselves the estates of 
the Despensers confiscated in the last reign, and induced 
the Parliament to assign so large a dowry to the ex-Queen 
that "hardly one-third part of the revenues of the crown 
lands were left for the use of the King." 

Immediately after the ceremony of the coronation, "the 
King's peace" having been duly proclaimed, the Great 
Charter was confirmed, for the first of thir- 
teen times in this reign. The Parliament Council of 

& Regency. 

then proceeded to appoint the Earl of Lan- 
caster, with three other earls, four bishops, and four 
barons, to be guardians and counsellors of the young 



8 £ award the Third. a.d. 

King during his minority. Mortimer was not one of 
these, which may perhaps be accounted for partly by his 
being still under the sentence of attainder passed upon 
all who had been of "the quarrel of the Earl of Lancas- 
ter" executed in the last reign; but, (in addition to the 
odium created by his arrogance and rapacity,) there 
seems good reason to believe that he was beginning to be 
regarded with suspicion and dislike on account of his re- 
lations with the now doubly unfaithful Queen of Edward 
II. Most of the members of the Council, however, be- 
longed to the Queen's party ; and by means of their in- 
fluence, and an unscrupulous disregard of the intentions 
of Parliament, Mortimer and Isabel were enabled to carry 
things with such a high hand that " no one dared open 
his mouth for the good of the King or of the kingdom." 

Edward was crowned on February i, and on the same 
day was admitted by his cousin Lancaster to knighthood, 
an order to which, in those days, even kings were proud 
to belong ; and the contemporary ideal of which order 
he so well fulfilled throughout his career, that he claims 
to rank as the first knight of Europe in his day, with 
perhaps a less questionable right than that upon which 
George IV. aspired to be the first gentleman of Europe 
in his. No time was lost by the Council of Regency in 
securing the kingdom against aggression, by concluding 
a treaty with France, and issuing orders for the due ob- 
servance of the thirteen years' truce made with Scotland 
in 1323. But, as will shortly be seen, neither of these 
precautions was of any avail. For the aged warrior, 
Robert Bruce, hearing of the deposition of Edward II. 
and the accession of a boy king, could not 
^Scotland resist the temptation thus offered of reas- 

serting the independence of Scotland. No 
pains were spared by the English Government to avert 



1317- Scottish Raid into the Northern Counties. 9 

hostilities, but the Scotch were determined on war ; and 
at Easter, 1327. their king sent a formal defiance to Ed- 
ward, declaring that he would "enter England and burn 
it, as he had done before the battle of Bannockburn." 
Upon this, a proclamation was issued in King Edward's 
name, summoning all the tenants of the Crown to meet 
him in arms at Newcastle on May 19, and a supporting 
fleet was ordered to sail to Skinburness, a port in the 
north of Cumberland. While the King was on his way 
to the rendezvous, news reached him that the Scots had 
already entered English territory, and were ravaging the 
county of Cumberland, 24,000 strong, under Randolph 
Earl of Murray, and Sir James Douglas the darling of 
Scottish story, — the Bruce himself being too ill with lep- 
rosy to lead his army into the field. During the six weeks 
that King Edward's forces remained at York, conflicting 
rumours as to the position of the Scotch army were 
brought to the English camp. Hearing that they were 
gathering in force at Carlisle, Edward issued orders that 
all the able-bodied men of the " wapentake of Holder- 
nesse and the town of Beverley*' should be marshalled in 
arms ; but attaching more credence to a report that they 
were laying waste the county of Northumberland, he ad- 
vanced northward himself to the city of Durham, and 
two days' march beyond. All this time he could gain no 
information of the present whereabouts of the enemy, 
though where they had already been was only too evi- 
dent from the ruins they left on their track ; for it soon 
appeared that while the well-equipped English army, 62- 
000 strong, was blindly pushing forward in search of 
them, the nimble Scots had given them the slip, and were 
actually in the rear of their pursuers. 

The army of the Scots was well adapted for marauding 
warfare. Every man was mounted on a rough, hardy 



io Edward the Third. a.d. 

galloway, and carried with him strapped to his saddle all 

that he wanted for the campaign. He was not 

of e fhe iptI ° n particular as to changes of raiment, but he 

Scotch brought with him a bag of oat-meal, with an 

soldiery. ° . 

iron plate to bake it on, and he knew how 
to cook the flesh of the English cattle in cauldrons made 
of their own skins. Thus lightly and independently ac- 
coutred, the Scots could march two miles to the English 
one, and their tactics were to move rapidly from place to 
place, doing all the mischief they could, and never risk- 
ing a collision with the main body of the enemy. 

Finding it hopeless to overtake the Scots or bring them 
to bay, Edward determined to gain by a rapid march the 
northern bank of the Tyne, and intercept their army on 
its return. Baggage and stores were sent back to Dur- 
ham, each man taking with him no more than his arms 
and a single loaf of bread. They started at midnight, 
and marched till sunrise and all through the following 
day, and crossed the Tyne at Haydon as the sun set. For 
seven long days they halted there, though their saddles 
were rotted, and their bread sodden by incessant rain. 
On their forced march they had been unable to bring 
with them any protection against the weather, and they 
had nothing for it but to lie down and sleep in their ar- 
mour on the soaking ground. The troops were on the 
point of breaking out in open mutiny when Edward, re- 
crossing the river to better quarters, proclaimed the reward 
of knighthood and one hundred pounds a year to anyone 
who would bring intelligence of the position of the 
enemy. On the fourth day a Yorkshire esquire, Thomas 
of Rokeby, rode into the English camp, and told the 
King how, venturing too near the Scottish army, he had 
been taken prisoner and carried before Murray and 
Douglas ; who, on hearing of the reward proclaimed 






1327. The Scotch in Durham. 11 

by the English, had acquitted him of all ransom and 
sent him to Edward with the message that " they were as 
hot to fight as he to find them." Rokeby then described 
the position of the Scots, posted some three leagues away 
on a hill sloping down to the right bank of the Wear. 
At daybreak Edward drew out his army "in a fair 
meadow to refresh themselves " before the march, and 
himself withdrew, with a number of his knights, to a 
neighboring abbey, to confess and receive absolution be- 
fore the battle which now seemed imminent. 

When the Scotch saw the Southerners approaching^ 
they drew out in three " battles," on foot, at the bottom of 
the hill, leaving so narrow a strip between their front and 
the river, that had the enemy succeeded in forcing the 
passage across they would have found no room to form 
on the other side. By this time the English had drawn 
so near to the bank that each army could plainly see the 
devices on the shields of the men of the opposite host, 
and Edward sent a herald to the Scotch 
commanders to say that if they wanted to Edward's 

\ J proposal to 

fight, he would retire far enough from the the Scotch 
river to give them room to marshal their ar- manders. 
ray, or, if they liked it better, they might 
draw back and give him room to form on the southern 
side. It might be thought that this singular proposal, so 
characteristic of the age of chivalry, could have been 
made only in those romantic times ; but the readers of 
Herodotus will remember that some eighteen centuries 
before, the bold Queen Tomyris offered precisely the 
same alternative to Cyrus, "if he wanted to make trial of 
the Massagetas." 

Douglas was for accepting the proposal, but, overruled 
by the less "chivalrous" or more prudent Murray, he sent 
back a message that "the Scotch lords were better advised 



12 Edward the Third. a.d. 

than to follow the counsels of an enemy ; that they had 
slain the English and burnt their villages, and that now 
was the time for the English to chastise them if they 
could." Notwithstanding this bravado the Scots knew 
that it would go hard with them if they were intercepted 
by the superior forces of the enemy, and trusting to their 
great rapidity of movement, they suddenly decamped at 
the dead of night, and moved farther up the river, choos- 
ing a new position, in Stanhope Park, " the hunting- 
ground of the Bishop of Durham," from which it was 
equally hazardous to attempt to dislodge them. The 
enemy followed, and here again the two armies stood 
facing each other for fifteen days more, the English suf- 
fering much privation, but the Scots feeling quite at home 
in this rough campaigning. From every midnight till 
morning the latter " kept up such a noise with perpetual 
and universal shoutings and cries and winding of horns 
most dismally, that it seemed as if all the devils had 

come to carry them off." On one of these 
attack on nights Douglas planned, and all but carried 

caLp nghsh out » an adventure, the wild and successful 

audacity of which recalls to mind the mid- 
night raid of Gideon on the host of the Midianites. Put- 
ting himself at the head of 200 well-mounted men-at- 
arms, he crossed the river below the English camp, and 
stealing upon and slaying the out-watchers, charged sud- 
denly into the midst of the sleeping army, shouting, "A 
Douglas! a Douglas! Die, ye English thieves !" Three 
hundred men were slaughtered half asleep, and Douglas 
himself made straight for the tent of the young king, the 
ropes of which he cut with his own sword before he gal- 
loped off safe with most of his men in the darkness and 
confusion. The next evening there was a rumour of an- 
other night attack, and the English army stood under 



1327. The King Borrows Money. 13 

arms all through the hours of darkness. At daybreak 
two trumpeters were brought in, from whom 
they learned that the Scotch had decamped T * ie Scotch 
and crossed the river in the middle of the 
night and were now many leagues off on the way home 
to Scotland. Such was the suddenness of their departure 
and the plenty of their supplies, that the English found in 
the deserted camp 500 oxen and deer already killed, 300 
cauldrons of broth cooking in undressed skins stretched 
across stakes, and 1,000 spits with the meat on them 
ready for roasting. Five poor English prisoners were 
discovered tied to stakes, still alive, but with their legs 
broken. 

Pursuit was, of course, hopeless, and Edward had to 
withdraw unsuccessful from his first expedition, which 
certainly deserved better success, for the Scotch were 
truce breakers and aggressors, and he, though outwitted 
and worsted in tactics, had the best of the rights of the 
quarrel. It would be well if the same could be said for 
him in the long subsequent struggle, wherein the Scots 
were fighting bravely for independence under a king of 
their choice, and Edward was putting forth the whole 
strength of England to force upon them a Balliol instead 
of a Bruce. 

The odium of the failure fell chiefly on Mortimer, by 
whose secret influence it was thought that the English 
leaders were kept back from a more vigorous and daring 
course of action. 

The Scotch had been living at free quarters in the 
enemy's country during the campaign, but to the English 
the expedition was as costly as it was unsuccessful. 
Besides the expenses of his own troops, Edward owed 
14,000/. — a sum equivalent to at least 200,000/. in our 
day — to Sir John of Hainault for his co-operation in the 



14 Edward the Third. a.d. 

campaign, and now began to feel for the first time the 

want of money which beset him so fre- 

berins to quently, and drove him to such questionable 

borrow expedients in later years. He first borrowed 

money. 

of the Bardi, or Longobardi, a Florentine 
banking company settled in London, who gave their 
name to Lombard Street. When they failed in 1345 — 
an event which, Villani tells us, plunged all Florence in 
distress, and which was chiefly owing to Edward's un- 
paid debt to them of 900,000 gold florins — he betook 
himself to the ' brethren of the Hanseatic Steelyard,' an 
association of German traders who had established 
themselves on the banks of the Thames in the reign of 
Henry III. By way of security on the present occasion 
he gave the Bardi an order on the collectors of customs 
at Sandwich and Southampton, and directed his treasurer 
to pawn the royal jewels if the amount in his hands 
proved insufficient to pay his debt to Sir John of Hain- 
ault. 

The next care of the Government was to bring about, 
if possible, a permanent peace with Scotland. After 
some preliminary negotiations, a Parliament was sum- 
moned to meet at York, for thus early in his 
Scotiand th career the young King began the system of 
taking the advice of his parliament on all 
important questions. This was a remarkable character- 
istic of his reign, and doubtless one of the secrets of his 
success in carrying with him the support and sympathy 
of his subjects in many of his less defensible undertak- 
ings. On the present occasion he wrote to Robert Bruce 
as ' by the grace of God the illustrious King of the Scots,' 
to say that, acting on the advice of ' the prelates, nobles, 
earls, barons, and commons of his kingdom,' he offered 
to enter into peace with him, abandoning all claims 



1328. Terms of Peace with Scotland. 15 

over the realm of Scotland. This overture was accepted 
and a treaty of peace signed by both kings, and A D I3z8 
confirmed by Parliament on April 24, 1328. 

The importance of this treaty can hardly be overrated. 
It was a virtual abandonment of the claims founded on 
Edward I.'s conquest of Scotland in 1290, and an ac- 
knowledgement of the legitimacy of the Bruce dynasty. 
The principal agreements were as follows: — that the 
English king should give up, at once and forever, his 
feudal claim to the overlordship of Scotland, and restore 
the ' Ragman Rolls,' consisting of thirty-five skins of 
parchment, on which Balliol and other Scottish nobles 
had signed their names to a document admitting that 
claim ; that the sacred stone on which the kings of Scot- 
land had been crowned at Scone, and other national 
heirlooms taken away by Edward I., should be given 
back ; and on the part of the Scotch, that the estates of 
certain nobles who had forfeited them by taking the 
English side should be restored ; that Bruce should pay 
20,000/. in three annual instalments to England, and 
finally that his son David, the heir of the Scottish crown, 
then in his sixth year, should be betrothed to the Prin- 
cess Joan of England, King Edward's sister, a child of 
about the same age. 

The above stipulations were, in the main, faithfully 
carried out, and David was affianced four months later to 
Joan ; but dangerous riots prevented the removal of the 
coronation stone, which is still to be seen in Westminster 
Abbey, and a delay, of disastrous consequences, as will 
presently appear, took place in the restoration of the for- 
feited estates. 

The balance of advantage was so much in favour of 
Scotland that the peace, regarded as humiliating, and all 
but treasonous, by the English, immensely aggravated 



1 6 Edward the Third. A.D. 

the unpopularity of Mortimer and the Queen, who were 
supposed to be its authors, and for whose private use it 
was suspected that the money payment to be made by 
the Scottish king was intended. 

It was during the settlement of the stipulations of this 
treaty, in the autumn of 1327, that the murder of Edward 

II. took place at Berkeley Castle. It is tol- 
Edw de d n erably certain that there was at the time no 

public suspicion of foul play ; but when, on 
his trial in 1330, Mortimer was accused of having com- 
manded the King's assassination, he admitted the truth 
of the charge. 

Shortly after the return from the Scotch campaign, an 

embassy was sent to Count William of Hain- 
The King's au u to demand his daughter Philippa in 

Marriage. ° rr 

marriage for King Edward, to whom she 
was already affianced. He and his betrothed were with- 
in the prohibited degrees, being both great-grandchildren 
of Philip III. of France; but the Pope having granted a 
dispensation, the future queen set sail under the escort of 
her Uncle Sir John and the commissioners sent from 
England to fetch her. The marriage took place at York 
on January 24, 1328. The bridegroom was between fif- 
teen and sixteen, and the bride only fourteen years of 
age , but the pleasures and cares of real life began earlier 
and ended earlier in those days than in ours. It would 
appear that in the Middle Ages the deaths of a great 
portion of the English nobility, even when due to natural 
causes, took place under the age of forty ; and their eld- 
est sons, though commonly the offspring of very early 
marriages, frequently became wards of the Crown by 
reason of their minority. The Black Prince was born in 
his father's eighteenth year, and fought the battle of 
Creci when he was himself but sixteen years of age. 



132Q. The Earl of Kent involved in Treason, 17 

Within a fortnight after the royal wedding Charles the 
Fair, the last of the Capetian kings of France, died, an 
event full of disaster for that country and for England. 
No sooner had it occurred than Edward III. put forth a 
presumptuous and unfounded claim to the French crown, 
which involved the two countries in a war of a century's 
duration, and sowed the seeds of a national antipathy 
which has not yet ceased to bear poisonous fruit. As the 
war, however, did not break out for ten years later, it 
may be as well to reserve the account of this claim and its 
consequences till that part of the history has been reached. 
A more immediate and menacing danger arose from 
the ambition, hitherto successful, and the tyranny hitherto 
unchecked and unpunished, of the infamous 
Mortimer, and the still more infamous Isabel. 
Their guilty relations to one another had now become 
notorious ; and Mortimer, sensible of the growing hatred 
of the people as well as of the nobles, determined to 
surround himself with a body-guard of armed retainers 
to overawe Parliament, and, by a high-handed exhibition 
of power, to give the barons a visible proof that the 
greatest and noblest in the land were not secure against 
his vengeance. 

Edward had summoned a parliament to meet at New 
Sarum (now Salisbury), and the nobles had been for- 
bidden in the King's name to attend it with an armed 
retinue, an illegal but not uncommon custom in those 
times. Mortimer, in defiance of this prohibition, appeared 
at Salisbury with a large armed force, and the princes of 
the blood, the Earls of Kent, Norfolk and Lancaster, 
hearing of this on their way, and suspecting his designs, 
stopped short at Winchester. When the rest of the 
Parliament were sitting in debate, Mortimer broke into 
their chamber, and threatened them with loss of life and 

c 



1 8 Edward the Third, a.d. 

limb if they attempted to dispute his pleasure. As soon 
as the session was over, a confederacy was 
formed by the barons, with whom the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of London and 
Winchester took part, to rid themselves of a tyranny now 
become insupportable. They met at St. Paul's and issued 
a manifesto, setting forth the charges against Mortimer, 
which were only too notorious and well-founded, and 
everything promised success ; but at the critical moment 
Kent and Norfolk lost their courage, faltered, and with- 
drew, leaving Lancaster unsupported. Mortimer easily 
persuaded the young King that it was against the royal 
authority the confederates were plotting, and it was only 
through the intercession of the Archbishop that they 
were allowed to make submission and save their lives at 
the sacrifice of half their lands. Then Mortimer, elated 
by his success, and wishing to remove a man whose 
amiability, popularity, and influence made him a pecu- 
liarly odious rival, determined to compass the death 
of the Earl of Kent, the King's uncle, by 
oftheEarlof practising on the simplicity of his character 
Kent * and drawing him into the net of high treason. 

With this object in view he caused a rumor to be circu- 
lated that King Edward II. was not really dead, but 
confined and hidden away in Corfe Castle in Dorsetshire. 
The Earl, deceived by this report, went himself to Corfe 
Castle to make enquiries. The governor, a creature of 
Mortimer's, refused him admission to his brother, but 
promised that if the Earl would put what he wished to 
say in writing, he would himself convey the letter to the 
King. This letter, which of course was soon in the hands 
of Mortimer, contained all that was necessary for his 
treacherous purpose ; but the Earl of Kent had commit- 
ted himself still more deeply by consulting the Pope at 



1330- Fall of Mortimer. 19 

Avignon, and receiving his sanction to a plan for releasing 
the deposed King. It so happened that a Parliament was 
sitting at Winchester when the fatal letter 
came into Mortimer's hands, and as his op- 
ponents had been afraid to take their seats therein, it will 
easily be understood that when the Earl of Kent was 
arraigned before it and charged with a treason which he 
could not deny, he was straightway convicted, and sen- 
tenced to lose his head. Mortimer, fearing lest the King 
should relent towards his uncle, hurried on the execution, 
which took place the following day, but not before the 
evening, for so great was the general resentment against 
the malice and treachery of which the Earl was a victim, 
that no one could be induced to undertake the office of 
executioner ; till at length a convict was found in the 
Marshalsea willing to carry out the cruel sentence on 
condition that his own life should be spared. After this 
triumph over justice and humanity, Mortimer's arro- 
gance and tyranny knew no bounds or restraint. Some 
of his opponents, under pretext of their complicity in 
the late treasonous attempt, were thrown into prison, 
and others assailed with prosecutions, till at last no 
one felt secure in person or in purse. The estates of 
the Earl of Kent were seized for Mortimer's youngest 
son, Geoffrey ; the greater part of the vast accumula- 
tions of the Despensers in the last reign were, as we 
have seen, appropriated to himself. He kept more than 
regal state ; he held tournaments and round tables, 
and from his reckless extravagance, and affectation 
of all the external vanities of royalty, his own son 
gave him the name of "the King of Folly." 
But his hour was come at last, and his degra- E? ll 5 f 

' & Mortimer. 

dation and punishment were reserved for the 

hand of the young king whom he had so deeply injured. 



20 Edward the Third, A.D. 

At the birth of his son and heir (June 1330) Edward 
was still a boy in years, but from this moment he would 
seem to have thrown off the dependence and simplicity 
of boyhood, and to have awakened to a keen and pain- 
ful consciousness of the contemptible position to which 
he had suffered himself to be brought by an arrogant 
subject and a depraved mother. Relying on the univer- 
sal hatred of which Mortimer was the object, he resolved 
to get possession of his person and bring him to justice 
for his crimes, without being over-scrupulous as to the 
means employed. But this was no easy matter, for the 
King was surrounded by the emissaries of Mortimer, who 
reported his every word and action to their master. 
However, letting the young Lord Montacute into his 
confidence, he secretly arranged with him that they 
should take advantage of a Parliament about to be held 
at Nottingham to put their plan of seizing Mortimer into 
execution. But Mortimer and Queen Isabel, suspecting 
apparently that some mischief was brewing, were before- 
hand with them in getting to Nottingham and taking 
possession of the Castle ; and though, when Edward 
arrived, they permitted him to take up his quarters in 
the keep, they limited his retinue to three or four ser- 
vants. So well had their precautions been taken that it 
seemed impossible for the youthful confederates to ac- 
complish their object without letting the Governor of the 
Castle into the secret, and securing his co-operation. He, 
however, at once entered cordially into the scheme, 
though it was not possible for him to admit an armed 
force at midnight as the King proposed, because the 
keys of the fortress were always placed under Queen 
Isabel's pillow. He was prepared, however, with a 
better plan. A king who lived in times long past, pro- 
viding against some now forgotten danger, had made a 



i33°- Execution of Mortimer. 21 

subterranean passage leading from the donjon keep into 
a cave in the hill-side, the entrance to which is still 
shown on the west of the Castle and known by the name 
of Mortimer's Hole. On the evening of October 19, the 
King and his associates rode out of Nottingham into the 
country to divert suspicion, but at midnight they re- 
turned, crept through the subterranean passage, over- 
powered the guards, and broke into a chamber adjoining 
that of the ex-Queen, in which Mortimer was holding 
consultation with the Bishop of Lincoln. A struggle en- 
sued, in which he was soon overpowered and made a pri- 
soner, the Queen meanwhile shrieking from her chamber, 
"Fair son, fair son,0 spare the gentle Mortimer!" 

The King, emboldened by the success of this spirited 
and hazardous enterprise, seized the next morning on 
several of Mortimer's adherents, and sent them off to the 
Tower of London to await their trial. The same day he 
issued a proclamation in which he threw 
himself, according to his wont, upon public T . he J Cln s be - 

' & » r r g lns to govern 

opinion, stating that the affairs of the king- as well as 
dom had been dishonourably administered 
during his minority, that he had arrested Mortimer and 
the other guilty counsellors who had abused their position 
and his youth, and meant to bring them to justice ; and, 
finally, that from henceforth he took the government of 
the kingdom into his own hands. A Parliament was 
summoned to meet at Westminster, at the bar of which 
Edward invited all who had any cause of complaint 
arising out of the " evil practices of those who had been 
his ministers" to state their case, and promised them re- 
dress of grievances and better government for the future. 
Before this Parliament — that is to say, before "his peers," 
the earls and barons assembled — for the Commons, 
though present, took no part in the proceedings — Morti- 



22 Edward the Third. A.D. 

mer was arraigned. The charges brought against him 
were that he had usurped regal power, taking the gov- 
ernment out of the hands of the Council of Regency, — 
that he had trepanned the earl of Kent into a treasonous 
conspiracy, — that he had come with an armed force to 
the Salisbury Parliament, — that he had taken exorbitant 
grants of the public domains, — appropriated to his own 
use 20,000 marks of the money paid by the Scots, — and 
that he had procured the death of the late King. " The 
earls, barons and peers," as judges of Parliament, con- 
demned him, without trial, upon the " notoriety of the 
facts," to be "drawn and hanged as a traitor." This 
sentence was, some twenty-four years later, declared to be 
illegal, but it was now carried into effect, and Mortimer 
was accordingly drawn and hanged on the third day after, 
at " The Elms," since called Tyburn. A like arbitrary 
judgment was at the same time passed upon others of 
Mortimer's abettors, and upon Maltravers, the late King's 
custodian, for whose apprehension a large reward was 
offered. His colleague, Berkeley, arraigned before Par- 
liament for having been concerned in the King's assassi- 
nation, " put himself upon his country," and was acquitted 
by a jury of all complicity therein. Of the two actual 
assassins, Ogle and Gournay, the fate of the former is 
unknown ; Gournay, after many escapes, was hunted 
down at Naples, but died miserably of disease as they 
were dragging him back to England. 

The Queen Dowager, who, as was tacitly assumed, had 

lived on terms of dishonourable intimacy 
Dowager^ w ^k Mortimer, and had been a sharer with 

him in the guilt of her husband's death, was 
placed in secure but respectful captivity at Castle Rising, 
in Norfolk ; Three thousand pounds were assigned for 
her annual maintenance, and during the remaining 



1 33 2 - Measures for "Preservation of the Peace. 1 * 23 

twenty-eight years of her life she was occasionally visited 
by the King, and permitted to appear as a spectator when 
jousts were held at the castle. 

With the fall of Mortimer the reign of Edward III. 
virtually begins. One of his first acts was to issue writs 
to the judges, commanding them to admin- 

AT cans ttilcon 

ister justice boldly and impartially, without t o repress 
respect of persons or regard of arbitrary ^er! dlS " 
orders. He also exacted from his powerful 
and lawless barons a solemn promise that they would 
break off all connection with the robbers, thieves, plun- 
derers, and murderers by whom the country was overrun, 
and who were not uncommonly under the protection of 
the great landowners. They beset the high roads, seized 
and ransomed travellers, and surrounded the courts of 
justice to intimidate the judges. The local magistrates 
who had " been appointed to keep the peace " during Mor- 
timer's sway, were unable to cope with these ruffians, 
and on one occasion the King had to put himself at the 
head of a body of soldiers to attack and disperse them. 
The " Statute of Winchester," passed in the 
reign of Edward I., embodied the whole 
police system of those days, and the most important 
principle which it adopted and confirmed was that of 
fixing on each neighborhood the responsibility of crimes 
committed in it. In accordance with the spirit of this 
statute, the leading men of each county were now charged 
with the duty of assembling the people by " Hu and Crie," 
and pursuing the malefactors "from vill to vill, from 
hundred to hundred ;" while it was further enacted that 
the King himself should go from county to county to see 
that this duty was done. Special commissioners had also 
been authorized in Edward L's reign to supplement the 
ordinary machinery for the preservation of the peace. 



24 Edward the Third. a.d. 

These were called " Courts of Traylbaston," a word which 
in old French means drawing the stick, and properly 
designates the crime itself, and not the means of its pre- 
vention or punishment. These courts were specially in- 
stituted to suppress what we should call club law, and 
did good service during the first twenty years of Edward 
III.'s reign. In 1347 they were superseded by the formal 
establishment of " Keepers of the Peace," who, fourteen 
years later, had large powers granted them, and began to 
be called" Justices of the Peace," as at present, and to hold 
their sessions four times a year (36 Edward III. 1. 12). 
But even members of Parliament travelling up to London 
were inclined to rely on themselves for protection or re- 
dress, and frequently came provided with " swords, long 
knives, actons (or flexible cuirasses) and haubergeons," 
so that it was found necessary in the sitting of 1332, to 
enact that none but earls and barons, and those duly au- 
thorised to keep the King's peace, should enter London 
armed. While these more formidable elements of dis- 
order were thus sternly repressed, the petty disturbers of 
the peace were not forgotten, for we find among the 
statutes of this session an enactment drawn up, as usual 
in grave Latin, to the effect that "little boys shall not be 
permitted to play at bars or other games," or to amuse 
themselves by " knocking off the hats of the passers-by, 
in the neighbourhood of the Palace of Westminster." 



1332. Edward BallioT s Invasion of Scotland, 25 



FIRST DECADE.— A. D. 1327—1337, 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM THE FIRST INVASION OF SCOTLAND TO THE COM- 
MENCEMENT OF THE FRENCH WAR. 

It will be remembered that in the spring of 1328 peace 
had been made with Scotland, on terms so favourable to 
that country that it seemed unlikely that its 

A.D. 1332. 

continuance would be endangered by any War with 
neglect or dilatoriness on the side of the 
Scots to fulfil their part of the stipulations. But King 
Robert Bruce, who was now old and ailing, found it im- 
possible or inexpedient to enforce the clauses pledging 
him to restore to their former owners the forfeited estates 
of the English nobles within the Scotch border. Before 
this part of the contract had been fulfilled he died, in 
1329, and left his son David, a child of seven years old, 
under the regency of Randolph, Earl of Murray, his old 
companion in arms. But still no steps were taken, not- 
withstanding repeated remonstrances on the part of the 
English Government, and the admission on the Regent's 
part of the justness of the demand, for the cession of the 
forfeited estates. At last the great barons of the north 
determined to take the matter into their own hands, and 
right themselves by force of arms ; for they knew that 
King Edward was reluctant to break the peace, partly 
because, had he done so within four years, he would by 
agreement have forfeited ,£20,000 to the Pope, and partly 
on account of his recent alliance with the young King of 



26 Edward the Third. a.d. 

Scotland. Lord Beaumont, a powerful noble in the 
North of England, who claimed the Scotch Earldom of 
Buchan, had from the first opposed the treaty, and 
thereby incurring the hatred of Mortimer, had left his 
country and now resided in France. There he had 
fallen in with Edward Balliol, son of the ex-King of 
Scotland, and thinking that the young exile would be a 
useful instrument in his hands for the recovery of his own 
rights, Lord Beaumont brought him over to England 
and procured him an interview with the King ; in which 
Balliol, after the fashion of those days, offered, on con- 
dition of Edward's assisting him to gain the throne of 
Scotland, to hold that country as a fief under the English 
crown. So far from giving him assistance or encourage- 
ment, the King refused to allow any forces destined for 
an invasion of Scotland to march over English ground, 
and straightway issued strict orders to the guardian of 
the Scotch Marches to prevent the passage of Balliol's 
troops across the frontier. He had taken no steps, how- 
ever, to check the levying and equipment of forces in 
the northern counties, and an army of 3,300 men was 
before long prepared to take the field under Balliol and 
the confederated English nobles. The invaders took 
ship at Ravenspur, a harbour near Spurnhead, in York- 
shire, famous in after years as the landing place of Henry 
IV's invasion, but now long since buried in the sea. 
They made for and safely reached Kinghorn in Fife- 
shire, where the undisciplined crowd which flocked to 
oppose their disembarkation were soon put to flight by 
the showers of arrows poured upon them from the Eng- 
lish ships. They then marched westward by Dunferm- 
line, underneath Perth, and finally took up a strong posi- 
tion in the heart of the country, with the river Earn in 
their front. 



1332. Battle of Dupplin Moor. 27 

Just before this crisis, the wise and capable Regent, 
Randolph, Earl of Murray, had died, and the great Sir 
James Douglas, having gone with King Robert's heart to 
offer it at the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre, had perished 
on his way, in conflict with the Moors of Spain. The 
regency had devolved upon the Earl of Mar, a man 
wanting both in energy and in military capacity ; but so 
strong was the national antipathy to Balliol as represent- 
ing the idea of English supremacy, that Mar found no 
difficulty in bringing an army of 40,000 men 
into the field against him. He drew up over Dublin* 

against the enemy on the northern bank of Moor, 

the Earn, on Dupplin Moor, while the Earl 
of March, with forces scarcely inferior to the Regent's, 
threatened the flank of the little army of the invaders. 
Balliol, however, was not wanting in valour or general- 
ship, and there were, as usual, traitors in the Scotch 
army, one of whom led the English, by a ford which he 
knew, safe across the river in the darkness of the night. 
They threw themselves upon the scattered, over-secure, 
and ill-sentinelled camp of the enemy with such a sudden 
and furious onslaught, that the huge Scottish army broke 
up into a panic-stricken and disorganised crowd and 
were slaughtered like sheep, the number of the slain four 
times exceeding that of the whole of Balliol's army, 
which escaped with the loss of thirty men. The invaders 
now took possession of Perth, which the Earl of March 
forthwith surrounded by land and water, and thought to 
starve into submission ; but Balliol's ships broke through 
the blockade on the Tay, and the besiegers, despairing 
of success, marched off and disbanded without striking 
another blow. 

Scotland having been thus subdued by a handful 
of men, the nobles one by one came to make their 



28 Edward the Third. A.D. 

submission. Young King David and his affianced bride 
Edward were sent over to France for security, 

Baiiiol an( j Edward Balliol was crowned King at 

crowned 

King of Scone on September 24, 1332, two months 

after his disembarkation in Scotland. 
As Balliol was thus actual [de facto) King of Scotland, 
Edward could now form an alliance with him without a 
breach of the treaty ; and there seemed to be many argu- 
ments in favour of espousing his cause. The young 
Bruce and his dynasty represented the troublesome spirit 
of Scottish independence, and were closely allied with 
France, whose King, as will be seen, lost no opportunity 
of stimulating and supporting the party of resistance to 
England. Balliol, on the other hand, admitted in a 
secret despatch to Edward that the success of the expe- 
dition was owing to that King's friendly non-intervention 
and the aid of his subjects ; offered to hold Scotland as 
his man, doing him homage for it as an English fief; 
and, treating the princess Joan's hastily formed union 
with David as a mere engagement, proposed to marry 
her himself instead. The King, as always, even on less 
important issues than the present, consulted his Parlia- 
ment, laying the question before them in the following 
curious form : — " Lequel il se devoit trere vers Escose en 
clamant le demeigne de meisme la terre, ou de soi faire 
parti a prendre l'avantage d'aver en service, come ses 
auncestres avoient, ou la value," i.e. "whether he should 
treat with Scotland claiming the land as his own domain, 
or elect to take the advantage of having it in service as 
his ancestors had done, or (to take) its value." This 
being an affair of high national interest, all the estates of 
the realm, the earls, barons, prelates, the clergy, the 
knights, and the commons, were invited to give their 
opinion upon it, each estate deliberating separately ac- 



1 33 2 « Balliol obliged to fly to England. 29 

cording to the custom of those times. The attendance 
was thin and the season late, and so they pleaded the 
importance of the question as a reason for deferring its 
discussion till Parliament should have reassembled after 
Christmas. 

Balliol in the meanwhile, having dismissed the greater 
part of his English auxiliaries, was lying unsuspicious of 
danger at Annan, when his camp was attacked in the 
middle of the night by a strong body of cavalry under 
Murray, son of the wise Regent, and Douglas, 
brother of the great Sir Tames. The entrench- Balliol sur- 

t ■* prised and 

ments were stormed in the darkness ; noble, driven out 

vassal and retainer were slaughtered before 

they were able to organize any resistance, and Balliol 

himself barely escaped with his life across the English 

border. 

The English Parliament met at York in January, and 
after a week's deliberation on the question under its new 
complications, agreed in recommending that the advice 
of the Pope and of the French king should be taken. 
This, as may be imagined, was not very acceptable coun- 
sel to Edward, especially as, in his mind, to attempt the 
reinstatement of Balliol on the terms which that adven- 
turer had offered during his short-lived tenure of royalty, 
was already a foregone conclusion. The term of four 
years within which breach of the treaty on Edward's 
part would have involved the forfeit to the 
Pope had now expired, and the recommence- 
ment by the Scots of their old depredations on the Eng- 
lish border supplied him with a fair pretext p ar n ament 
for renewing hostilities. The Parliament, grants a 
notwithstanding Edward's disregard of their 
advice, granted him as a subsidy towards the expenses 
of the war a fifteenth on the personal estates of the no- 



30 Edward the Third. a.d. 

bility and gentry, and a fifteenth on the value of " move- 
ables" in the boroughs. But now for the first time, when 
voting this subsidy, they took the step of petitioning for a 
redress of grievances, a preliminary which from this 
date onward became a constant, if not a formal, condi- 
tion of all money grants to the sovereign. On this occa- 
sion they prayed that " the King would henceforth live of 
his own, without grieving his subjects by illegal taxes," or 
by the worse exactions of his " purveyors," who claimed 
the right of purchasing goods for the King's use at a 
price of their own fixing, and paying for them by " tallies," 
or orders for cash, too often carried in vain by vendors 
to an empty exchequer, 

The " King's own," that is the ordinary revenue in 
times of peace, is roughly estimated by the latest and 
best authorities at £65,000 a year. 

Instructions were now issued to the Earl Marshal for 
a levy of troops from England, Wales, and Ireland, to 
meet the King at Newcastle, and leave was given to the 
inhabitants of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Dur- 
ham to drive their flocks southward, out of the reach of 
Scotch marauders, and pasture them in the royal forests. 

Berwick-on-Tweed was the key of Scotland. Its com- 
manding border position and massive fortress made it, 
like Ramah of Benjamin in ancient times, a 
firs^inva- constant object of acquisition in war, and a 

iind° fSc0t " frequent scene of international struggles. 
Edward I. had taken it in 1296, but it was 
recovered from his successor by Robert Bruce, who had 
doubled the strength of its fortifications, and occupied it 
with a strong Scottish garrison. Edward marched 
straight upon Berwick, and commenced a siege which, 
after two months of fierce assault and gallant resistance, 
was turned into a blockade. The garrison, reduced to 



I 335» Edward the Third i?ivades ScotIa?id. 31 

extremities, made an agreement to surrender on July 20, 
if not previously relieved either "by an army, or by a force 
of 200 strong cutting their way through the besiegers* 
lines without a loss of more than thirty men." On July 
19, to the delight of the beleaguered fortress, Sir Archi- 
bald Douglas, now Regent of Scotland in Bruce's name, 
and in succession to the ill-starred Earl of Mar, appeared 
before Berwick at the head of an army originally destined 
for a raid into Northumberland. 

The Scotch considerably outnumbered the investing 
force, but the English were strongly posted to the north 
of the town on Halidon Hill, a position which, as all they 
had to do was to prevent the Scotch from en- 
tering and relieving Berwick, they were in no Halidon 
hurry to abandon. It had been Sir Archi- Hill, July 
bald's intention to adhere to the traditional 
tactics which his countrymen had found so efficacious in 
former campaigns, and, avoiding a general engagement, 
to harass the enemy by perpetual skirmishing ; but on 
this occasion, partly on account of the reckless impetuos- 
ity of his followers, and partly from the necessity of 
taking the offensive in order to relieve the garrison, he 
determined to push across a morass which protected the 
enemy's front, and advance up the hill against them. 
The English army remained immovable till the Scots had 
• waded through the marsh and were breasting the hill. 
This was the moment for which the archers had been 
waiting, and as soon as the leading files had advanced 
within range of their shot, they poured down upon them 
so sudden and irresistible a storm of arrows that they 
wavered, broke, and fell back upon the rear ranks, 
throwing them into such disorder that even flight became 
impossible. Then the English men-at-arms bore down 
upon the rout, and the Welsh and Irish irregulars rushed 



32 Edward the Third, A.D. 

in upon the flanks, armed with their long knives ; and 
such bloody carnage ensued, and so many knights and 
nobles fell that it was the saying of the day that ' the 
Scotch wars were over at last,' for there was not a man 
left in Scotland who had skill to muster an army or lead 
it against the enemy. 

The immediate result of the battle of Halidon Hill 
was the surrender of Berwick " Tower and town " to the 
invaders. Berwick remained thenceforth an integral 
part of the English domain, the only territorial trophy of 
Edward's Scottish victories which was never lost. It 
was therefore invested with a peculiar interest and im- 
portance as representing the English claims to the sov- 
ereignty of Scotland. It had its own officers of state, 
like a separate kingdom; and its exceptional position is 
commemorated in the heading of Acts of Parliament, 
declaring them to be of force in "England and in the 
town of Berwick-on-Tweed." 

Edward wrote to the archbishops and bishops directing 
that thanks should be offered up to God for this great vic- 
tory, and having received the homage of the Scotch no- 
bles, and placed Balliol at the head of a force sufficient 
to confirm and extend his conquests, returned to Eng- 
land. Balliol was at once acknowledged by the Scotch 
Parliament assembled at Edinburgh, and many of the 
nobles swore fealty to his crown, though they hated him 
in their hearts as the creature and delegate of the hered- 
itary enemy of their country, and as the instrument, if not 
the author of her degradation. For now the fairest prov- 
inces and the strongest fortresses of Scotland 
— Dunbar, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, and the 
whole kingdom south of the Forth — were ceded to Ed- 
ward and declared to be for ever annexed to the English 
monarchy, while Balliol had to do liege homage to the 



1328. Character of the War with Scotland. 33 

English crown for that portion of Scotland over which 
he was allowed to remain the titular king. 

The exasperation of the proud and patriotic inhabi- 
tants of Scotland may be imagined at this consummation 
of the national disgrace. It is true that at the close of 
the preceding century Scotland had become by right of 
conquest a dependency of the English crown ; but since 
that time, the victory of Bannockburn, the good and wise 
reign of Robert Bruce, and, above all, the recent formal 
acknowledgment of th e indepen dence of Scotland by 
the treaty of 1328, ha^roMi^at^aT^h^<on quest of 1296. 
The struggle which ended at Halidon Hill had been for 
dominion on the one side and independerice dn the other, 
and the worse had triumphed over the better cause. 

Unable to bring an army into the field, the adherents 
of the national cause harassed the new Government by 
incessant petty insurreOTfiaag^L^SAndrew 
Murray of Bothwell, a man of courage and thewar with 
capacity, now Regent in the name of the Scotland. 
exiled King, got the better of Balliol's forces in many 
small but important actions. The French assisted the 
struggling party with men and money, and with ships, 
which hovered round the coast and cut off the sup- 
plies sent from England ; till at last Balliol, twice a king 
and twice a fugitive in less than two years, was glad 
to find refuge within the English border, and 
the adherents of the Bruce once more seized 
upon the reins of government. Again and again did 
Edward journey in person to the north at the head of 
an army, in the vain hope of shoring up the tottering 
edifice of anti-national royalty. Truce upon truce was 
made, and no sooner made than broken by fresh uprising 
of an irrepressible spirit of independence. The country 
was wasted by the invader far and near, and no open 

D 



34 Edward the Third. a.d. 

resistance attempted ; but day after day found Edward 
farther than ever from the conquest of the Scottish soil, 
and more and more an object of detestation to the Scot- 
tish people ; till a crisis occurred in another quarter 
which demanded all the warlike resources of England 
and recalled her King, chafed, sullen, and reluctant, to 
his own dominions. 

The war in Scotland had assumed a chronic character 
and still lingered on, stimulated and embittered by the 
indirect influences of a mightier struggle ; but its course 
was not marked by events of grave importance, and 
King Edward III. was not able again to in- 
France^ 11 Be- va< ^ e Scotland in person for twenty years 
ginning of the to come. For now the two foremost and 

quarrel. . 

most powerful nations of Europe were about 
to engage in a contest, in which the best blood of both 
was to be spilt, furious passions evoked, and the seeds 
sown of imperishable animosities, for the sake of a sel- 
fish object impossible of attainment, and equally fatal to 
the interests of both peoples had it been attained. 

Hostilities between England and France had been 
imminent towards the close of the last reign. The French 
army had indeed withdrawn from the actual occupation 
of the English territory of Aquitaine ; but an agreement 
respecting the restoration of the Agenois not having been 
fulfilled, war was about to be declared between the two 
nations, when the deposition of Edward II. changed the 
policy of England. It will be remembered that one of 
the earliest acts of Edward III.'s Council of Regency 
was to send an embassy to Charles IV. of France, to 
negotiate a treaty of peace, a principal condition of which 
was the restoration to England " of certain lands recently 
seized in Aquitaine ;" but, on the death of King Charles 
in the February of 1328, Edward laid claim to the sove- 









1328. Question of the French Succession. 35 

reignty of the whole realm of France, and thus gave the 
first challenge to an international duel, which lasted, 
with intervals of breathing time, for a hundred years. 

Among the many evils which Queen Isabel, of un- 
happy memory, brought upon the English people, the 
most fatal and far-reaching in their conse- 
quences were those which owed their origin Ed"" 1 ^!!! 
not to her fault, but to her misfortune in 
standing in the line of succession to the throne of France. 
King Philip IV. (the Fair), dying in 13 14, left three sons 
who became successively kings of France — Louis X., 
called Hutin or the Quarrelsome ; Philip V., called the 
Long; and Charles IV., surnamed like his father, the 
Fair. Louis died after a reign of two years only, having 
had no child but a daughter, Joan, afterwards, in her 
own right, Queen of Navarre. His wife, however, was, 
at the time of his death, expecting her confinement, and 
shortly afterwards gave birth to a boy, who was called 
John I. in his cradle, but survived for nine days only. 
Then Philip the Long, who had already been appointed 
guardian of the realm, ascended the throne, but he again 
dying without a male heir, was succeeded by the third 
and last brother, Charles, who also died, leaving daugh- 
ters only, in the year after Edward III.'s accession. 
Upon this occurrence, Queen Isabel of England, the 
mother of Edward III., was the sole survivor of that 
generation, the children of Philip the Fair. Now, had 
the law of succession been the same in France as it has 
been for many centuries with us, Joan, the daughter of 
Louis Hutin, would have reigned before her uncles Philip 
and Charles, and of course in priority of right to her 
aunt, Isabel Queen of England. In France, however, 
the succession was, and had been from time immemorial, 
regulated by the Salic law, which excluded females from 



36 Edward the Third, a.d. 

the throne. In the case of Louis Hutin's daughter, the 
states of the realm, by a solemn decree, had affirmed the 
principle of the Salic law by excluding her, and declaring 
that all females were for ever incapable of succeeding to 
the crown of France. This disqualification 
on the part of Joan, now Queen of Navarre, 
and on the part of his own mother, Edward did not deny. 
He admitted the view that " the kingdom of France was 
too great for a woman to hold by reason of the imbecility 
of her sex ;" but his contention was that though a female 
could not herself succeed, she could transmit the right 
of succession to her male offspring ; and he therefore 
maintained that he, as the eldest son of Isabel, was, in 
default of direct male issue, the rightful heir to the French 
crown. Four years indeed after this date, the Queen of 
Navarre, Louis Hutin's daughter, gave birth to a son, 
who subsequently bore the well-deserved title of Charles 
the Bad, and whose claim was undoubtedly superior to 
Edward's, even from his own point of view. But now, 
in 1328, on the death of the last undisputed King of 
France, and the birth of a posthumous daughter of that 
monarch, Edward was in a position to urge, as he did 
not long afterwards in a forcible letter to the Pope, that 
he was the nearest male in blood to the deceased sovereig?i, 
to whom he was related in the second degree ; whereas, 
Philip of Valois, the only other claimant in the field, stood 
in the third degree of consanguinity. Meanwhile the 
" twelve barons of France," acting as the highest author- 
ity of the kingdom during an interregnum, had decided 
and declared that the crown devolved upon Philip of 
Valois, as the first cousin of the late King. 

Thus the royal dignity passed out of the direct line of 
the descendants of Hugh Capet, who had transmitted it 
from father to son for three hundred and forty years. 



FRANCE, ABTOIS, AND BLOIS. 

FRANCE. ARTOIS. 






jo r^ pMHp ' _ J^ Marg U = ( Lou,., JL-C -*>, .J , B. L h= r PM.ip, ..' , 



350-1364 ■ ' good Duchess of Normandy 






1329. Question of the French Succession. 37 

Edward's view of the case was supported by his own 
Parliament and by many disinterested authorities at the 
time, and even received the sanction of some French 
jurists ; but there can be little or no doubt that his claim 
was altogether untenable, being opposed to traditional 
usage, recent decisions, and, finally, to the wishes of the 
French people. It would seem, from subsequent events, 
that he had no present intention of doing more than 
placing it upon record, but we may observe here the first 
example of that halting, uncertain, double-handed policy 
which throughout his reign characterised the whole of his 
transactions with the French kings. While maintaining 
an outward attitude of amity towards France, he took 
measures for fortifying the Channel Islands, negotiated 
with the Duke of Brabant for the hire of mercenary 
troops, and wrote to his seneschals in Aquitaine telling 
them that it was his full intention to recover " the heritage 
of his mother" by all means in his power, and engaging 
them secretly to enlist certain Gascon nobles on his side 
by promising them indemnity for any risks which they 
might run. 

Philip, in all probability, had no suspicion of the exist- 
ence of a counter-claim to his throne, and thought of the 
young King of England only as a liegeman . 

owing homage to himself as feudal suzerain Philip of 
of the English fiefs in France. At the time 
of his accession, however, he was not in a position to 
stir up any dangerous questions, for he found himself in- 
volved in a war with the Flemings, whose sovereign, 
Count Louis, having been expelled by his subjects, had 
sought the French king's protection and as- 
sistance in recovering his rights. Now 
Philip hated the Flemings, because he was at heart a 
selfish and narrow-minded aristocrat, and could not bear 



38 Edward the Th : rd. a.d. 

that a trading community, relying on their prosperity, 
wealth, and intelligence, should dare to show a will of 
their own, or entertain ideas of political liberty. He 
therefore espoused the cause of the exiled prince, and 
gladly availing himself of the first opportunity of calling 
all his vassals together under his authority, he marched 
against the Flemings, determined to teach them, and 
through them, his own dependents, that merchants and 
tradesmen were no match for knights and nobles in the 

field. The sturdy plebeians, notwithstanding, 
Battle of were very near giving to the chivalry of 

France a lesson quite different from what 
they expected, but, after a gallant, stand-up, and long 
doubtful fight near the town of Cassel, they were defeated 
with terrible slaughter, and compelled to receive back 
their banished sovereign. Having achieved this triumph, 
Philip, on his return to his dominions, sent by Roger, 
Abbot of Fecamp (afterwards Pope Clement VI.), a mes- 
sage to King Edward, commanding him to repair to 
France and do him homage for the fief of Guienne. 

This summons was subsequently repeated, and then, 
before returning an answer, Edward, according to his 

wont, submitted the question to a Parliament 
Edward 29 assembled at Westminster, in February, 

does homage. l ^ at w hich it was decided, probably under 
the influence of Mortimer, whose interest it then was to 
preserve the peace, that the King should obey the cita- 
tion. It would seem, however, that a secret protest was 
placed on record that his claim to the crown of France 
was not in any way compromised by his consenting to 
do homage for his duchy. The Cathedral at Amiens 
was the place fixed upon for this high ceremonial. The 
King of France received his vassal seated on his throne, 
in a blue velvet robe of state, sprinkled with golden 



I33 1 - Edward does homage for Guienne. 39 

fleur-de-lys, his crown on his head and his sceptre in his 
hand, and surrounded by a brilliant assemblage of 
reigning kings and sovereign princes his feudatories, and 
all the great nobles of his realm. It was an occasion for 
pomp and splendour, and Edward — nothing loth, for he 
loved display, and had come over with a gorgeous retinue 
and a thousand richly caparisoned horses — now entered, 
and stood before King Philip to do his homage in a robe 
and train of crimson velvet, with the English leopards 
embroidered on them in gold, his crown on his head and 
goldens spurs upon his heels. Then, inclining his body 
toward the throne, he said in a loud voice, "Philip, King 
of France, I, Edward, by the Grace of God King of Eng- 
land, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine, do hereby 
become thy man, to hold the Duchy of Guienne as Duke 
thereof, and the Earldom of Ponthieu and Montreuil as 
Earl thereof, and as Peer of France, in like manner as 
my predecessors did homage for the said Duchy and 
Earldom to thy predecessors." But King Philip, when 
he called together his subjects and subject princes to 
witness the ceremony, had looked for a more submissive 
form of "commendation," as it was called, than this, 
and told his chancellor to "let his liegeman know that 
the manner of his predecessors was to put off the crown 
and lay aside the sword, and do homage with their hands 
between the French King's hands then and there prom- 
ising fealty and homage to the King of France as their 
sovereign lord." This Edward refused to yield, but in the 
meantime, until the records of precedent could be con- 
sulted, he agreed to a compromise ; and when the oath 
was tendered to him he answered "Voire" (so be it), 
placing his hands between those of the French King, 
while the latter in accordance with the prescribed form of 
the feudal system, kissed him on the mouth. 



40 Edward the Third. a.d. 

Edward returned home highly delighted with all that 
he had seen in France, and so full of friendly feelings 
towards its sovereign that he proposed a double alliance 
between the royal houses, by which his brother should be 
united to one of Philip's daughters, and his sister Eleanor 
should become the wife of the heir of France. Thus it 
was that, though the fortresses in Agenois claimed under 
the treaty of 1327 were not mutually restored, nor hom- 
age duly done according to the requirements of the 
French King, amicable personal relations continued for 
a time to subsist between the two Courts. 

But in Aquitaine a hostile spirit was at work. The 
English had garrisoned Saintes, a frontier town, and the 
Count of Alencon, who had been sent to watch over 
French interests in this quarter, exceeding his instruc- 
tion, attacked and took it. This act of aggression had all 
but kindled the war. In the Parliament held at Eltham 
in 1330 the King asked for a subsidy in case the French 
King should reject all terms of peace, and soon after 
directed ships to be got in readiness to convey troops to 
Aquitaine ; but, strange, as it may seem, he was all the time 
employing commissioners to bring about an accommoda- 
tion, and through their exertions a treaty was actually 
concluded at Bois de Vincennes (May, 1330). 

But now the question of the incomplete homage was 
revived, and Edward was once more summoned before 
his suzerain. It should be borne in mind that by the 
rules of the feudal system the forfeiture of the fief to its 
liege lord was the immediate consequence of a refusal to 
do the duty of a vassal ; and in a letter to the Pope, 
written by Mortimer's desire, at this date, Edward states 
that he believes King Philip is preparing to enter into 
possession of the duchy by force, and implores the Holy 
Father's intercession. At the same time he writes to his 






1336. Friendly attitude of England and France. 41 

seneschals in Guienne to say that if the King of France 
attempts to "make execution" in that territory without 
employing force, they are to "dissimulate" and gain 
time, but that " force must be met by force." 

On the death of Mortimer in 1330, Edward, wishing to 
re-establish friendly personal relations with the French 
King, executed a deed admitting that he had 
done him full and liege homage ; and shortly J^ticSs 
afterwards went, attended by his friend Lord between 

J English 

Montacute, who had shared with him the and French 
dangers of Mortimer's apprehension, "with 
scarce fifteen horsemen," disguised as merchants, to pay 
a visit to Philip. This interview seems to have led to an 
understanding, for the French King agreed to restore the 
castle of Saintes, paying 40,000 livres for the damage 
done to it — and also admitted that he was satisfied on the 
subject of the homage. Peace was therefore again pro- 
claimed between England and France in 1331, and main- 
tained for five years unbroken by overt hostilities. In 
the spring of the year following this treaty, it was pro- 
posed by King Philip that he and Edward should make 
a joint crusade against the Saracens in the Holy Land or 
against the Moors of Granada. Edward's acceptance of 
the proposal is hardly to be wondered at, for he was at an 
age when the love of adventure, even when untinctured 
with religious fanaticism, is sufficient to overcome pru- 
dential considerations. It does seem strange, however, 
that the Lords and Commons of Parliament, untaught by 
the long historical series of past failures, should have 
acquiesced in and even encouraged such a costly, haz- 
ardous, and chimerical undertaking. They only sug- 
gested that its execution should be postponed for a time, 
before the lapse of which, as it came to pass, the outbreak 
of war with Scotland (p. 30), and dangers nearer home 



43 Edward the Third. A.D. 

engrossed the attention and energies of the English 
people. That war embittered the relations between 
England and France, for the latter was continually assist- 
ing Scotland, either openly with ships and troops, or by 
secret subsidy and encouragement. 

The Popes, during the reigns of Edward II. and III. 
were living under the protection of the Kings of France, 
first at Lyons and afterwards at Avignon, in an exile 
from Rome which, from its duration of nearly seventy 
years, was called the "Babylonish Captivity." And in- 
deed, they came there in the first instance at the bidding 
of the French King, and distributed the sanctions and 
denunciations of the Church for the most part in the in- 
terests of himself and his successors. In the summer of 
1335, however, when Philip wrote to Benedict XII. at 
Avignon, saying that he was obliged by his treaties with 
the Scots to give them assistance, the Pope strongly 
warned him against the danger of embroiling England 
and France in war, and offered himself to act as media- 
tor between the two kingdoms. But though no sovereign 
in those times willingly disregarded the Pope's sugges- 
tions, they were rarely permitted to stand in 
Philip's t h e way f personal interests or schemes 

policy. J r 

of national aggrandisement. Now Philip, 
throughout these transactions, enjoyed one great advan- 
tage over his rival — that of having a positive and defi- 
nite policy, while Edward had none. This policy, which 
he had inherited from his predecessors on the French 
throne, consisted in the endeavour to extinguish alto- 
gether the great fiefs of the Crown by reducing them to 
absolute submission — to absorb them into the monarchy, 
and thus at last to weld all the provinces of France into 
one compact and solid dominion. Such was Philip's 
wise and statesmanlike aim, and to prevent his gaining 



1336- Policy of Philip of Valois. 43 

it at England's expense was probably at this time the 
only object of King Edward, whose claim upon the 
throne of France had long been suffered to lie in abey- 
ance. That claim was only revived when it became 
evident that hostilities a outrance were inevitable, and 
that a war on a defensive basis would fail to arouse the 
enthusiasm and satisfy the proud and adventurous spirit 
of the English people. Philip, meanwhile, was acting 
with extreme duplicity. He not only endeavoured, by all 
means in his power, to undermine the loyalty of Ed- 
ward's subjects in Aquitaine, where there had always 
been a French party and an English party — the former 
strongest in the country districts, the latter in the towns — 
but he secretly laid plans for an invasion of England, 
in order to call off Edward's attention from the defence 
of his French possessions. In Sicily, Genoa, Norway 
and Holland, ships were being fitted out for this object, 
but the authorities of those countries were induced by 
the representations of the English government to put a 
stop to these preparations. Not content, however, with 
secondary measures of defence, Edward created a Board 
to advise on the best means of protecting the English 
coast, and wrote to the Mayor of Bayonne directing him 
to send a fleet to England to assist in repelling an ex- 
pected invasion from the Norman shore. He also com- 
manded his two admirals to take the sea, in whose com- 
mission occur words which, illustrated as they have been 
by the subsequent history of five centuries, no English- 
man of the present day can read without some feeling 
of pride in his country's long traditions of glory : 
" Whereas our progenitors, the Kings of England, have 
been in all times past lords of the English sea on every 
side." (Cf. p. 227.) 

These precautions were not taken too soon, for in Sep- 



44 Edward the Third. A.D, 

tember 1336 an attack was actually made upon the Isle 
of Wight and the other Channel Islands, 

Aggressions 

of the and English commerce interrupted by Frencji 

cruisers. Repeated aggressions had com- 
pelled Edward to abandon his expected conquest of 
Scotland, and it became every day more clear that Philip 
was scheming to wrest from him his French possessions. 
Notwithstanding all this, however, probably because his 
intentions were honestly pacific, possibly because he only 
wished to gain time for more complete preparation, the 
English King spared no exertions to come to an agree- 
ment with France. When, however, all his overtures 
were rejected, and it became evident that he was being 
goaded into war, he saw that it behooved him not only 
to muster his fleets and arm his battalions, but also to 
look around and strengthen himself by alliances, so as 
to be ready to take the field at once, unless prepared to 
submit unresistingly to the dictation of France. His 
principal object, and one in the prosecution of which he 
showed considerable adroitness, was to take advantage 
of the dissensions and jealousies of the neighbours by 
whom Philip was surrounded. 

But in order to understand the nature and extent of 
Edward's alliances, and the powers arrayed against him, 
it will be desirable to take a short survey of the map of 
Europe at this date. 



I 33°- clrc - France and Spain. 45 



FIRST DECADE.— A. D. 1327-1337. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE STATES OF EUROPE, ETC., IN THE FOURTEENTH 
CENTURY. 

England and France were, in the fourteenth century, 
the two most formidable nations in Europe. Others 
might be named which surpassed them both, in wealth or 
in population or in extent of territory ; but there were none 
which combined in an equal degree the several elements 
of power, or possessed within their own boundaries such 
a warlike stock of fighting men. They were, however, 
very differently circumstanced from the Eng- „ . , 

I A Jr f * A it ■• A England, 

land and France of to-day. For in the me- 
diaeval struggles between those two nations, 
Scotland, as has been already abundantly shown, instead 
of supplying to the national army, as she now does, the 
very flower of its soldiery, was, owing to her hostility to 
England and sympathy to France, her geographical situ- 
ation, and her capabilities for carrying on a harassing 
warfare, — a constant source of weakness and distraction, 
and one of the most effective and dangerous allies of the 
French King. 

Ireland indeed furnished occasionally a small contin- 
gent of irregular troops to the English armies ; but far 
from being an element of national strength, 
this unfortunate dependency had become 
thus early in the history of its connexion with England 
one of the greatest difficulties of the sister island. 



46 Edward the Third. a.d. 

Bounded on its farther shore by a melancholy and unfre- 
quented ocean, and believed to be the farthest outpost of 
humanity towards the unknown west, — torn by appar- 
ently purposeless intestine dissensions, whilst in a state of 
chronic revolt against the influences of English civilisa- 
tion ; — Ireland was an object of constant wonder, per- 
plexity, and apprehension to the kings and statesmen of 
the greater island, to which she was then, as now, by 
situation and circumstances, irrevocably bound. 

France, in respect of its boundaries and national con- 
stituents, was still very much in the same condition as it 

had been left by Hugh Capet some 350 years 

before, except that its subdivisions were fewer 
and each of its "fiefs" larger and more important. 
These were now in reality small dominions in them- 
selves, the ancient chiefs of which, their counts or dukes, 
had become their true sovereigns, while the King of 
France was little more than their feudal overlord and 
suzerain. Such were the Counts of Flanders, Cham- 
pagne, and Toulouse ; the Duke of Brittany, the Duke 
of Burgundy (to whom Nivernois owed homage), the 
Duke of Aquitaine, then also the King of England. 

South of the Pyrenees, the kingdom of Navarre, 
though no longer, as it had been in the days of Charles 

the Great and his sons, a portion of "Western 
Navarre Francia," or France, was governed by a 

French princess, the daughter of Louis X. 
Three other Christian kingdoms had been formed in the 
northern province of Spain out of territories wrested 
from the Almohades, a tribe of Moors who had come 

over from Africa in the twelfth century, on 
Aragon a « Y\w& of Mahometan crusade," and had 

Portugal. ' 

subdued nearly the whole of the Spanish 
peninsula. These were the kingdom of Aragon, founded 



133° clrc - The Moors. 47 

by "James the Conqueror " in the latter half of the previ- 
ous century, and that of Portugal, at about the same time; 
and lastly the great kingdom of Castile, which included 
the central and north-western part of the peninsula, and 
had reached its then dimensions by the annexation of 
the kingdom of Leon, and the acquisition of the great 
cities of Seville and Cordova under Saint Ferdinand III. 
A great part of the south of Spain, the 
"kingdom of Granada," was still in the 
hands of the Moors, who, receiving frequent accessions 
of strength from beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and 
protected by a good barrier of mountains on their north- 
ern border, had hitherto been able to maintain them- 
selves within their contracted limits, against the crusading 
attacks of Christian Powers. 

On the southern shore of the Mediterranean beginning 
with the Moorish kingdom of Fez, the whole of the 
African seaboard was occupied by tribes professing the 
faith of Islam. In fact, the Mediterranean 
itself more than once seemed in a fair way 
to become "a Mahometan lake." For, at one time, the 
religion of the Koran prevailed from the Pyrenees, all 
round by the coasts of Spain, of Africa, of Syria and 
Asia Minor, to the head of the Archipelago, — almost en- 
circling the little Christian isle of Cyprus, — at another 
the Crescent gleamed from the Straits of Gibraltar to the 
head of the Adriatic, receding on the western seaboard 
of Europe as it advanced on its eastern shore. 

Between Spain and Italy, on the northern shore of the 
Mediterranean, and bounded by the Rhone on the west, 
lay Provence, a dependency of the French 
King of Naples ; for the southern portion of 
the Italian peninsula, " the kingdom of Sicily on the 
mainland," was still ruled over by the dynasty of Anjou, 



48 Edward the Third. a.d. 

who had won it a century before. This kingdom of 
Sicily, with Naples for its capital though like 
the little kingdoms of Corsica and Sardinia, 
a fief of the Popedom, was, in extent of territory, the 
most important dominion in Italy, and one of its kings, 
Robert, who reigned from 1309 to 1343, was a prominent 
figure in the history of the Papal and Imperial struggles 
of his time, and a devoted partisan of the Guclfs, as the 
friends of the Pope were termed, in opposition to the 
Ghibellines, the party of the Emperor. Its political and 
moral weight, however, was inferior to that of many of 
the little principalities and commonwealths in the north 
of the peninsula, where the separate life of cities had 
enjoyed a free development in the absence of restrictions 
on enterprise, the security of the acquisitions of industry 
and the education of self-government. 

The patrimony of the Church comprised the finest 
provinces of central Italy, but during the absence of 
the Popes at Avignon, the greater part of 
Papal central Italy was a prey to factions and mis- 

government, and Rome had ceased to be 
the Christian metropolis of the world. The Papal coffers, 
however, were replenished by the regular and occasional 
offerings of the faithful, and by the fees paid into the 
detested but indispensable M Curia Romana," as the 
Papal Court was called, — for in every Christian State of 
Europe an appeal lay to that Court in all cases involving 
the Canon law. John XXII., who died in 1334, left be- 
hind him no less a sum than 25,000,000 gold florins, a 
sum probably equivalent to ^50,000,000 of the money of 
our time. The reigning Pope Benedict XII., had, out of 
his predecessor's accumulations, built himself a palace- 
fortress, at Avignon in Provence, and the luxurious villas, 
parks and gardens of his cardinals spread themselves 



1330 circ. Italian Republics, 49 

along the French bank of the river. The Popes no 
longer occupied the commanding position which they 
had held during the great pontificates of a few years 
back ; but, though notoriously under French influence, 
they kept up their traditionary character of international 
mediators, and, as no sovereign could afford to dispense 
with their sanction to his undertakings, they still ex- 
ercised a widely influential power in the councils of 
Europe. 

In the northern portion of Italy, and within the semi- 
circle of the Alps, the Governments of Lombardy and 
Tuscany had reached, in Edward the Third's reign, a 
very high pitch of prosperity and power. As Saracenic 
civilisation decayed on the western shores of the Medi- 
terranean, and Byzantine civilisation de- 
cayed at their opposite extremity, the Italian R alia Kr 
republics in some sort took the place of both, 
and the Crusades, which weakened and impoverished 
the rest of Europe, had brought a large accession of 
wealth, culture, and dominion to the rising common- 
wealths on the Adriatic and Etruscan Seas. They lay, 
in fact, under the suspicion of lukewarmness in the con- 
tests which thrilled all other Christian hearts, and even of 
an interested sympathy with the resistance of the infidels. 
Their geographical position was such that the civilised 
West and the barbarous East sought and found in their 
shops and warehouses a mart of exchange for their com- 
modities, the choicest woven fabrics in their factories, a 
secure depository for treasure in their banks, and inex- 
haustible facilities of transport in their ships. The annual 
revenues of Florence alone amounted to ^300,000, a far 
larger sum than England and Ireland yielded to Edward 
III., or even to the Tudor sovereigns two centuries later. 

In the south-east of Europe the Ottoman Turks had 



50 Edward the Third. a.d. 

overrun the Christian provinces of the Eastern Roman 
Empire, and were spreading to the north and 
east, overrunning the Sclavonic countries of 
Servia and Bulgaria, and making piratical incursions on 
the Mediterranean coasts. About the middle of Edward 
the Third's reign they had got a firm footing in Europe, and 
towards the end of it Amurath the Great had established 
his capital at Adrianople ; and Constantinople, with a 
small district round it, and some outlying territories in 
the Peloponnesus and elsewhere, was all that remained of 
the wide dominion of the Latin Emperors of the East. 
In the north, beyond the limits of Ottoman conquest, 
lay the three great Christian kingdoms of the Magyars 
(or Hungarians), the Poles, and the Russians; but the 
Russians were separated from the two former by the vast 
territory stretching from the Baltic to the 
Poland. ' Black Sea of the Lithuanians, who were still 

heathens, and the last Aryan people in Eu- 
rope to embrace Christianity. The northern portion of 
Russia was occupied by the great republic of Novgorod, 
extending across the Ural mountains into Asia ; but Rus- 
sia proper had lain for upwards of ioo years in a state of 
absolute, though indignant, vassalage to the Khan of 
Tartary. In the year of Edward the Third's accession* 
the first step towards the emancipation of Russia was 
made by the establishment of the national capital at 
Moscow ; but a century and a half more had passed 
before the famous Ivan Vasilovitz finally shook off Mogul 
(that is, Tartar) supremacy. During almost the whole 
of Edward's reign continual struggles went on between 
the Lithuanians, Russians, and Poles, but before the end 
of it a really powerful kingdom was established by the 
union of the crowns of Poland and Hungary under Louis 
the Great. 



133° circ. Scandinavia. America. 51 

Along the middle shore of the Baltic on the south lay 
the territories of the "Teutonic Knights" 
and the "Knights of the Sword." These Teutonic 

° , , Knights. 

two half military, half religious orders had 
established themselves in Prussia, Pomerania, and Livo- 
nia, and waged incessant wars with their heathen sub- 
jects and neighbours. These neighbours no doubt were 
superstitious and bloodthirsty. They immolated human 
victims, and burnt slaves on the graves of their departed 
heroes ; but the real attractiveness of the crusades 
against them lay not in the wish to extirpate infidelity and 
barbarism, but in the fact that war was then universally 
regarded as a noble field-sport, and this was, as it were, 
the most accessible hunting-ground. Religious fanati- 
cism lent an additional inducement by holding out the 
same hopes of expiation to the European crusader as to 
the warrior pilgrim to the distant holy places in the East, 
by washing out his sins in the blood of unbelievers. 

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were at this time pow- 
erful and aggressive States, and were making conquests 
on the Baltic seaboard, but they do not ^ 

r 1 r 1 \ • r Denmark. 

figure largely on the stage of the history of Norway. 
Edward III. Sweden - 

It is impossible to omit all mention of the very remark- 
able discovery of documentary and architectural evi- 
dence of the former existence of an European 
and Christian colony from Norway, with 
churches, monasteries, and a succession of bishops for 
two and a half centuries, on the Main of Greenland : a 
colony which is especially notable in this place because 
it vanished altogether from the face of the earth at the 
end of the fourteenth century ; and when Hans Egede, 
the famous Norwegian missionary, disembarked in 
Greenland in 172 1, he had no idea that he was about to 



52 Edward the Third. a.d. 

visit the ruined or deserted haunts of predecessors of his 
own country, faith and tongue. There is also good 
reason to believe that the Northmen, under 
the adventurous Leif, had already made 
their way beyond Greenland, and been the first discover- 
ers of America, trading with the natives for furs 450 
years before Columbus first went to Iceland to collect 
information to guide him in his Transatlantic researches. 
The whole of the centre of Europe was occupied by 
" the Empire," a territorial expression of vast import. 
The Emperor was, in theory, the successor 
mpire. ^ Charles the Great (or Charlemagne, if the 
imperial Teuton must always be known in England by a 
Frenchified form of his name), whose dominion extended 
over the whole of the European continent south and 
west of the Elbe and Danube, with the exception of a 
fragment of Italy and the greater part of Spain. This 
" Empire of the Franks " was divided among the grand- 
sons of Charles, and "Western Francia " passed away 
for ever from the Empire, and became the kingdom of 
France. Lothar, the eldest, succeeded to the title of 
Emperor, and, as it was necessary that the Imperial do- 
minions should include the two capitals Rome and 
Aachen (or Aix-la-Chapelle), he had a strip of territory 
assigned to him running north and south between the 
eastern frontier of France and the Rhine, from the Zuyder 
Zee to the Mediterranean, including the country within the 
semi-circle of the Alps and the northern half of Italy, and 
called after him Lothringen (Lorraine). The remainder 
of the Empire of Charles the Great — those peoples who 
spoke the German and not the Romance tongue, east 
and north of the Rhine and the Alps — fell to the share 
of his third grandson — "Eastern Franks," Saxons, Ba- 
varians, Austrians, Carinthians, with a doubtful dominion 



i- 



VI 
0\ 

An 

th 

er 

ye 

in 



TI 



so 
fo 
Fj 
E 
m 
A 
as 
ea 

Z( 

se 

ca 

of 

sp( 

an 

of 

va 



"The Empire^ 53 

over Czechs and Moravians beyond the Danube. After 
many vicissitudes the Empire was nearly reunited (with 
the exception of France) by Henry (the Fowler) of Ger- 
many, in the early part of the tenth century. He con- 
quered and annexed Lothringen, which he divided into 
Upper Lothringen, or "the Moselle," and Lower Loth- 
ringen, or Brabant, and raised his kingdom — for the title 
of Emperor was in abeyance — to the first rank among 
European monarchies. The Imperial dignity was re- 
vived in favour of his son Otho, who was crowned in 
962, and the Empire as he left it, though the title of its 
rulers had often varied in the interval, was, with respect 
to its extent and constituents, the Germany of the time of 
Edward III. It must be borne in mind, however, that 
Germany, like France, was an aggregate of almost inde- 
pendent principalities under a titular head ; and that 
their bond of union was even slenderer than the tie 
which bound together the constituents of the French 
kingdom. For the succession to the Imperial crown was 
not hereditary like that of France, but elective, and the 
intrigues of the candidates and of their respective parti- 
sans were constantly stirring up the elements of dis- 
union. On the sudden death of the Emperor Henry VII. 
in 1 313, Lewis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria were 
both elected, Lewis by four of the seven electors, Fred- 
erick by three ; but the votes were disputed, and for 
eight years from the accession of Lewis in 1314, Germany 
saw her fertile fields wasted and her cities laid in ruins 
by the struggle between the Austrian and Bavarian par- 
ties, till at last in the battle of Muhldorf, in 1322, the 
Austrians were finally defeated, and Frederick carried off 
a prisoner. 

Among the northern fiefs of the Empire were the 
dukedoms of Brabant, one portion of Flanders and the 



54 Edward the Third. A.D. 

great cities of the Hanseatic League ; while on the South, 
the powerful commonwealths of Lombardy, and the 
Dukes of Savoy who ruled around the Lake of Geneva, 
all owed a nominal allegiance to the Imperial crown. 
One more constituent of the Empire claims a passing 

notice. South of Germany, between Italy 
Confederation anc * France, there had sprung up, almost 

unnoticed by the greater kingdoms, a new 
European Power, the Swiss Confederation, about fifty 
years before this time. The mountaineers of the three 
ancient cantons Uri, Underwalden and Schwyz, had been 
driven to unite in an offensive and defensive league in 
1 29 1, to protect their freedom against the Austrians, 
over whom they won a famous battle at Morgarten in 
131 5. This was a victory of great importance, as con- 
firming the possession of the central mountains of Eu- 
rope to a hardy, warlike and independent race. Several 
neighbouring cities joined their alliance, and by the lat- 
ter end of the fourteenth century they had formed aeon- 
federation of eight States, and came to be called Swiss, 
from the name of the famous canton of Schwyz, which 
formed the nucleus of the league. In 1386 they won an- 
other great victory over the Austrians at Sempach, which 
confirmed the independence of their republic ; but they 
never reached the same point of political importance or 
social culture as the neighbouring Italian commonwealths 
though far surpassing them in nobility of character and 
warlike virtues ; for the love of liberty was to these rug- 
ged mountaineers what the pursuit of wealth, literature, 
art, and luxury was to the more favoured communities 
on the southern side of the Alps. 

But of all the secondary Powers of Europe none 
played so important a part in the history of these 
times as the Flemings, part of whose territory was 



1336 circ. Flanders. 55 

held under the French King and part under the Em- 
peror. The Flemings having been the first 
people in northern Europe to cultivate in- Flemings 

dustrial arts and manufactures, a rich middle 
class had sprung up among them, plebeian in origin, 
but imbued with ideas of self-importance and political 
independence unknown elsewhere in persons of that 
condition under feudal institutions. Their sovereign, 
Count Louis of Flanders and Nevers, had been brought 
up in France, was thoroughly French in habits and 
in character; and feeling no sympathy with the poli- 
tical aspirations for the new estate, cared little for 
the prosperity or reverses of his busy subjects, so long 
as their punctual payment of his revenues enabled 
him to lead an easy life amidst the pleasures of 
Paris. Some years after his expulsion and forcible re- 
instatement, of which mention has already been made, 
the Flemings, weary of continued misrule, chose for 
their Ruwart, or president, James van Arteveldt, " the 
Brewer of Ghent," so called because, though by birth 
an aristocrat, he had enrolled himself in the Guild 
of Brewers, and thrown in his lot with the traders, in 
their resistance to the selfish exactions of Count Louis. 
His authority was limited, for the sturdy burgomasters 
were not men to submit to despotism under the disguise 
of a commonwealth, but his administrative ability, his 
wealth, and his eloquence gained him practically un- 
bounded influence over his countrymen ; and, though 
the use which he made of it was not always judicious or 
unblamable, he claims to rank at least as the purest and 
most patriotic of demagogues. 

The importance of securing the alliance of the Flem- 
ings had been strongly urged upon the English King by 
Robert of Artois, a French noble, who, having made 



56 Edward the Third. a.d. 

a bitter enemy of King Philip, had thrown himself into 
the arms of Edward and become his most 
o^the** 1106 trusted confidant and adviser. Acting upon 
Flemish Robert's suggestions, the King had written 

to the brother of his Queen Philippa, William, 
Count of Hainault — and now, by failure of the elder 
branch, Count of Holland also — and at the same time to 
his brother-in-law the Margrave of Juliers, authorising 
them to form alliances for him with their neighbours in 
Flanders and Brabant. Now the Flemings and the Eng- 
lish had a common interest, which throughout the war 
kept them almost always on the same side, though they 
had more than one " lovers' quarrel" in the course of it. 
The Flemings were at this time the most successful work- 
ers in the woollen fabrics of northern Europe, and their 
principal towns had risen from very small beginnings to 
their present importance chiefly by this manufacture. 
But the English wool, and especially that of the eastern 
counties, then enjoyed the same pre-eminence of excel- 
lence above all the wools of the known world, which the 
Sea-island cotton possessed (or possesses) over all other 
staples of that article, and commanded an enormous 
price for the factories of the Flemings. It was their in- 
terest to pay highly for prime wool, and it was England's 
interest to sell in the dearest market, irrespectively of all 
political or strategical considerations. But it was also 
highly important to the English King to secure the good- 
will of a country which could give him a landing and an 
unmolested passage for his troops on their march to 
France. Now, the Count of Flanders was the liegeman 
of the French crown, but it was to him that Edward first 
made overtures, in the hope of detaching him from the 
interest of Philip ; and he endeavoured on more than 
one occasion to bring about a marriage between the 






1336 circ. Brabant. 57 

Count's heir and the princess Joan of England. Finally, 
however, Edward determined on allying himself with 
the popular party; and, in order to satisfy the scruples 
of the French Flemings, who, in spite of their demo- 
cratic aspirations, were proud of their position as the 
"first fief of the crown of France," he constituted him- 
self their lawful suzerain by publicly assuming the title 
of King of France, and challenging Philip as a usurper. 
These steps were taken under the influence of Van 
Arteveldt, who was determined, at all hazards, to prevent 
the probably intended absorption of the fief of Flanders 
in the French monarchy, and looked to the English 
alliance as the best security against this danger. 

The Duke of Brabant was another powerful feudatory 
of the Empire whom Edward much wished to gain over 
to his side. His people were the most suc- 
cessful rivals of the Flemings in the manu- staples 
facture of wool, and, like them, wished to established 

' in Brabant. 

secure the raw material of the best quality, 
from England. The Duke accordingly asked for the 
establishment in Brabant of a wool staple, or privileged 
wool market, to which alone that article could be consigned 
from England, and in which alone it could be legally 
purchased by the foreign manufacturer. 

The question of the establishment of staples will occur 
again. It is now sufficient to observe that Edward was 
probably not altogether ignorant of the injurious effects 
of such an institution upon trade, for he at first strongly 
objected to the proposal ; but afterwards, yielding to the 
necessity of strengthening his position, he consented to 
the establishment of three staples — Brussels, Mechlin and 
Louvain, in the dominions of the Duke of Brabant. It 
will shortly be seen, however, that he had to pay a still 
heavier price for the alliance of this shifty potentate. 



58 Edward the Third, a.d. 

The English King could rely on the co-operation of 
his three brothers-in-law the Counts of Hainault and of 
Guelders, and the Margrave of Juliers, who were already 
engaged in negotiating alliances for him, and he now 
sent abroad his friend Lord Montacute, recently created 
Earl of Salisbury, and others, on a kind of roving com- 
mission, to treat with any foreign Powers for the export 
of wool. Among their suite were many young Knights 
Bachelors who had each bandaged up one eye, under a 
vow to their fair ladies at home that they would use one 
eye only till they had done some deed of chivalry in 
France. In the autumn of the same year Edward en- 
tered into an alliance with the Emperor to furnish him 
with 2,000 men-at-arms, for whose services he was to pay 
3,000 gold florins, to fight against " Philip, calling him- 
self King of France.'* 

Many of these steps had been taken before Edward's 
reluctant abandonment of his Scotch campaign, but di- 
„. . rectly after returning to England he set 

Final pre- * . ° ° 

parations about his final preparations for war with 

characteristic arbitrariness and impetuosity. 
a. d. 1337. His first care was to complete his arrange- 
ments for the defence of his own dominions. He forbad 
any one to leave the country without his permission, or 
to disembark in England before he had been searched 
for treasonable correspondence from abroad. He ap- 
pointed Lord Salisbury the first English 
" Admiral of the Fleet," and made him 
" Captain of all the ports on the Thames and south 
coasts." The navy of that day comprised a few ships 
belonging to the King himself, for we read in the royal 
accounts of his paying for new anchors for the " Chris- 
topher" and the " Cogge Edward," and for eighty oaks 
to be sent to Kingston on Hull for building ships. The 



1337- The King buys Wool. 59 

Cinque Ports were obliged to provide a certain number of 
cruisers, but the bulk of the ships of war were really 
merchant vessels impressed for the purpose, a definite 
contingent of which each seaport was called upon to 
supply. This system, applied to a commercial country 
like England, was productive of great inconvenience ; 
and early in this reign, and more loudly towards its close, 
when the monarchy had grown weaker and the Parlia- 
ment stronger, — the people remonstrated against that 
arbitrary imposition of ship levies and ship taxes, which 
three centuries later stirred up a rebellion and overthrew 
the monarchy. 

To meet the enormous expenses of his intended expe- 
dition, the King had recourse to those "tallages" and 
forced loans which afterwards became so frequent in the 
course of this costly reign. From the first the war was 
popular. Edward was able to say with 
truth that the commons " urged" him to mSSs^ 

push his claim to the French crown, and the 
nobles " assented." The country could afford to be 
generous, for it was growing rich, and Parliament had 
backed up its approval by granting him fiemiission to 
purchase 20,000 sacks of wool, no less than half the an- 
nual produce of the kingdom, — a roundabout form of 
subsidy which seems to have recommended itself to the 
taxmakers and taxpayers of those days, in spite of its 
wasteful and mischievous effects, by looking a little less 
like arbitrary confiscation than a direct transfer of a tenth 
or fifteenth of the property of individuals to the royal 
exchequer. The "sack" of wool contained 364 lbs., a 
measure long since abandoned in favour of the." pack," 
which, containing 240 lbs., adapts itself readily to calcu- 
lations of the penny against the pound avoirdupois. 
This sack of English wool was worth 20/. in the markets 



60 Edward the Third. a.d. 

of Brabant where the King intended to dispose of it, but 
the producer in England had to sell it for 3/. As the 
King enjoyed the right of pre-emption % and could prevent 
any wool from being bought or sold till he had secured 
his 20,000 sacks, and as he could impress ships to convey 
the wool across the Channel, his gains ought to have 
been enormous ; but, being, of course, unable to go into 
the market himself, he employed ninety-six merchants as 
his agents, who were to receive one-half of the profits of 
the whole transaction, and to advance him a sum of 
200,000/. on the security of the customs throughout the 
kingdom. The amount which he realised by this very 
bad bargain was altogether inadequate to meet his needs, 
and, with a view to a further subsidy, he sent a circular 
to the sheriffs of the counties, directing them to gather 
together the clergy, barons, knights, and citizens, at cer- 
tain towns, to hear the King's intentions. To the arch- 
bishops and bishops he wrote stating that, having tried 
pacific measures in vain, he was compelled to go to war 
with France, and ordering them to call the clergy to- 
gether ; "to let him know quickly how much they would 
give in alleviation of his expenses ;" and to publish and 
expound his requirements in every church, "so that our 
faithful people may grant us liberally a subsidy and pray 
for us." He also directed that all the Priories Alien be- 
longing to the King of France should be confiscated, 
and their value paid into the Treasury. 

But though his preparations were thus forward, and his 

plans apparently ripening for execution, Edward, with 

that singular duplicity or vacillation which characterised 

his proceedings (for " policy " they cannot 

Edward's b e called), sent ambassadors to Philip with 

vacillation. ' * 

full powers to settle all causes of quarrel be- 
tween them. At the same time he wrote to the Duke of Bra- 



1337- Battle of Cads and, 61 

bant and the Count of Hainault, styling himself " King 
of France, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine," 
appointing them his vicars-general in France, and 
charging them to let all people know that France of 
right belonged to him. He renewed negotiations with 
the burgomasters of the revolted cities in Flanders and 
at the same time, with their Count whom they had ex- 
pelled ; proposing a marriage of his daughter with the 
Count's son ; while he offered the hand of the very same 
princess to the son of the Duke of Austria, the dynastic 
foe of the Emperor Lewis, with whom he had entered 
into alliance only a month before. Again, the Empire, 
as will presently be shown, lay under the Pope's inter- 
dict, and this alliance of Edward's with Lewis was made 
in open disregard of the Pope's authority and express 
wishes ; yet within a fortnight after its formation, Edward, 
who was determined to stand well with all parties, agreed 
to receive two cardinals from Avignon to treat for peace, 
and allowed himself to be induced by their exhorta- 
tions to postpone for a time the invasion of France. 

The first blow struck by England was in Flemish 
waters, and not against the King of France, but against 
the Count of Flanders. That prince, during 
the earlier negotiations of Edward with his c^dsand 

revolted subjects, had got into his power the 
grandfather of Van Arteveldt, and caused him to be put 
to death. This act was intended to strike terror into the 
popular party, but its only effect was to determine the 
Flemings to throw themselves into the arms of England. 
A collision occurred between Van Arteveldt and the 
troops of Count Louis, and the latter fled to Cadsand, an 
island at the mouth of the Scheldt, where he placed a 
garrison, under the command of his brother, to intercept 
the return of the English ambassadors. Edward sent 



62 Edward the Third. a.d. 

Sir Walter Manny (page 97) with a fleet to dislodge the 
garrison, and he, landing under cover of the English 
archery, routed the Count's soldiers and took his brother 
prisoner. 

The terms finally made with the party of Van Arteveldt 
would seem to show that Edward was more anxious to 
secure their lucrative custom than their military co-opera- 
tion in the war. It was agreed that the neutrality of 
Flanders should be strictly observed ; those parts of the 
country which held of France were not to be attacked, 
nor was an English fleet to remain in any Flemish har- 
bour over more than one tide, unless compelled by 
11 manifest and notorious tempest.'* The Flemings were 
meanwhile to have the right of trading freely at all the 
ports of England. 



SECOND DECADE. 

A. D. 1337-1347, 



CHAPTER I. 

THE FIRST INVASION OF FRANCE. 

The second decade of Edward the Third's reign opens 
amidst the din of the latest preparations for the great 
contest, called by French historians " the 
Hundred Years' War," though, like the long 
Peloponnesian struggle of old, it was not continuous, but 
ever and anon renewed itself in successive outbursts, 
with long intervals of comparative languor and inaction. 



1338- Attractiveness of War, 63 

Although King Edward had gained from his faithful 
Commons their sanction to his designs upon France, it is 
impossible, and indeed unnecessary, to be- 

i-i 1 1 • -i • , Sanction of 

lieve that such a chimerical project as that Parliament 
of subjugating a proud and warlike race, far 
exceeding their own in numbers, and alien in origin and 
institutions from both constituents of the island nation, 
should ever have been seriously entertained by the mass 
of the English people. Indeed, so far was the annexa- 
tion of France from being desired by the nation at large, 
that serious apprehensions were evidently felt lest, in 
such an event, our Kings should be once more what they 
had long been, Continental rather than English powers, 
and England should again become a mere dependency 
of a richer and more imposing dominion on the main- 
land. Two years later, in 1340, Edward found it neces- 
sary to give an assurance in a public paper that his as- 
sumption of the title of King of France should in no way 
prejudice the rights of his English subjects ; and in a 
statute passed the same year it is declared that "the 
people of our realm of England, of whatsoever estate or 
condition they be, shall not at any time be put in sub- 
jection or obeisance of us, or of our successors as Kings 
of France." 

The fact is, there was nothing in those days corres- 
ponding to that judicial tribunal of public opinion with 
which now rests the ultimate decision on all such ques- 
tions as that of peace or war. The representatives of the 
Commons, diffident in the exercise of new-born rights, 
shrank from giving an independent judgment on State 
affairs; there were no newspapers, no "leagues," no 
public meetings, and on all questions of imperial policy, 
the opinion of the King and the nobles was, practically, 
that of the nation. As for the aristocracy, their want of 



64 Edward the Tliird. a.d. 

legitimate occupation and resources made war at all 
times a welcome opportunity for the escaping from the 
tedium and monotony of a domestic life without books, 
without news, and without society ; in a country home 
which was more like a garrisoned fortress, surrounded by 
the squalid huts of an unfriendly and ill-conditioned 
peasantry. But war with France was war under its most 
splendid and attractive form. It promised to afford a 
noble field for the display of the knightly qualities 
which were most highly prized in that age, when the 
spirit of chivalry was at the zenith of its ascendency in 
Europe. The magnitude of the issues involved in 
battles wherein kings carried their crowns on the point 
of their swords, the love of adventure, the unbounded 
career open to successful valour, the rank and gal- 
lantry of the combatants, the passionate hopes and fears 
of the partisans on either side, — all contributed to 
make the impending struggle with France the centre 
of interest, and the most brilliant theatre of action in 
the world. 

The two cardinals sent by the Pope remained four 
months in England. They had been received with the 
greatest respect and ceremony, the Duke of Cornwall, 
Archbishop Stratford, and the Lord Mayor of London 

meeting them on their arrival, and the King 
cardinals welcoming them in person at the "lesser hall 

door of the Palace." During their stay they 
lived, as was customary, at the expense of the English 
clergy, and the cost of their entertainment was fifty 
marks a day, a sum probably equivalent to ^500 of our 
money ; we read moreover of orders of protection given 
to two ships bound for Bordeaux, to fetch 1 50 hogsheads 
of wine for their use. If we may judge from a passage 
in a contemporary poem, the " Vision of Piers Plough- 



1338- First invasion of France. 65 

man," (see below page 278), these prolonged visits were 
not regarded with much favour in England : — 

" The Country is the Curseder, that Cardinals Come in 
And where they Lie and Linger," &c. 

They arrived in November, and Edward had given them 
a promise that he would not invade France before March. 
But in the meantime King Philip had resolved to make 
himself master of Guienne before Edward could arrive to 
defend it, and early in February intelligence was brought 
to England that the French had already laid siege to 
certain towns in the Agenois. Notwithstanding this, 
Edward issued a proclamation on the 24th of that month 
declaring that, at the instance of the cardinals, he had 
postponed the invasion of France till Midsummer. But, 
with characteristic inconsistency, he wrote the day after, 
to order a levy of 1,000 men from Wales to be sent to 
Sandwich, and as many more to Portsmouth, for imme- 
diate embarkation ; and a fortnight later directed his 
admiral to "arrest" seventy large ships to carry them 
and others to Aquitaine, intending to invade from that 
quarter and from the north at the same time. And now 
news reached him that the French had actually landed 
at Portsmouth and burned it, and were laying waste the 
country round. Yet still he lingered, and it was not till 
the month of May that he determined to cast aside the 
officious meddling of the Pope, and formally revoked his 
promise to the cardinals. Then issuing orders for the 
more vigilant guardianship of the south coast, 
and appointing his eldest son recently created sailTfor 
Duke of Cornwall, then eight years old, to be Firs^inva- 
" Warden of the Realm" in his absence, he sum of 

France. 

sailed from Orewell for Flanders with 200 

ships, and first set foot on the Continent "in anger" on 

F 



66 Edward the Third. A.D. 

July 22, 1338. It was fortunate that the fleet of trans- 
ports was strong, for Philip had gathered together a 
vast number of ships, manned with mercenaries from 
Genoa and Spain, which constantly cruised about the 
Channel, intercepting traffic and making descents on the 
English shores. The utmost alarm was felt, and the 
" Great Council," acting in the name of the young Duke, 
issued orders for the fortification of Southampton, and of 
London itself "with stones and palisades " towards the 
Thames. A few months later Southampton was attacked, 
pillaged, and burnt on a Sunday while the inhabitants 
were at mass. 

Faithful to his engagement to preserve the neutrality 

of Flanders, Edward disembarked at Antwerp, which 

belonged to the Duchy of Brabant. On his arrival there, 

however, he found himself beset with diffi- 

King's want culties and mortifications. The allies who 

of money. 

had promised him their active co-operation, 
hung back and began to clamour for the payment of 
their subsidies, and a year was wasted before he could 
get them together under his standard. Meanwhile 3,000 
only of the 20,000 expected sacks of wool had arrived, 
and Edward wrote first anxious, and then peremptory, 
letters home, directing that wool should be taken wher- 
ever it could be found, "whether within the liberties or 
without, of all persons ecclesiastical or secular, sparing 
none.'* Whether the full tale of wool ever arrived or 
not we have no means of knowing, but anyhow the 
King's available resources were altogether inadequate to 
meet his expenditure during this period of forced inac- 
tivity ; with an army of near 12,000 men quartered in a 
foreign town, and large subsidies to his allies continually 
becoming due. To the Duke of Brabant alone he had 
promised, for what proved to be very doubtful services, 



1338. Pope v. Emperor. 67 

the enormous sum of 60,000/., about equivalent to a mil- 
lion of the money of our time. A few months later, such 
was his distress for money, occasioned by this and other 
demands, and aggravated by the extravagance of his 
Court at Antwerp, that he was compelled to pawn his 
"great crown, his little crown, and the Queen's crown" 
to the Archbishop of Treves, in security for a loan of 61,- 
000 florins. 

At last, however, on Edward's urgent entreaty, his al- 
lies met at the village of Halle, to decide whether they 
would fight for him or not. They were all of ^.«. , 

r , . r 1 t- • , , Difficulties 

them feudatories of the Empire, and the with his 
conclusion they came to was that they could 
not go to war against France without the consent of their 
overlord and suzerain Lewis of Bavaria. Now, the Em- 
peror was already in treaty with King Edward for the 
supply of troops, and many motives com- 

, . / \ . , . r- Edward 

bmed to dispose him to a closer union of in- and the 

terests. Germany and England had long mperor. 

been resolutely bracing themselves up for political and 
religious independence, and Lewis, who was a wise and 
farseeing prince, sympathised with these aspirations, and 
had not forgotten the fact that the English schoolman 
William of Ockham had been one of the most vigorous 
and efficient champions of the Empire against the ty- 
rannical assumptions of the Papacy. Indeed, the chief 
cause of the Emperor's readiness to take the side of Eng- 
land lay in his relations to the Pope. When the double 
election to the Empire, already mentioned (page 53), took 
place, Pope John XXIL, one of the most worldly, avari- 
cious, and implacable of all the successors of St. Peter, 
wishing to secure the Imperial dignity for his own patron, 
the French King, had opposed the claims of Lewis of 
Bavaria. When, therefore, the election of that monarch, 



68 Edward the Th'.rd. a.d. 

in defiance of the Pope's remonstrances, was confirmed, 
John summoned him to lay down his authority, as he had 
not taken the oath of fealty and obedience to the Papal 
See. This summons Lewis refused to obey, upon which 
Pope John straightway excommunicated him, and placed 
his dominion under an interdict. Thereupon the Em- 
peror had marched in great force upon Italy, got himself 
crowned King of the Romans in St. Peter's, and set up as 
Anti-Pope Peter of Corvara, a Franciscan friar. Then 
began a long struggle for supremacy between Pope and 
Emperor, in which each professed to depose the other, 
just as Gregory VII. and Henry IV. had done. At the 
date of Edward's invasion of France, Lewis, advanced 
in years, and enfeebled in mind and body, had become a 
prey to superstitious terrors, and, on the accession of 
Pope John's successor, Benedict XII., in 1334, had made 
overtures of submission to the Church. Peter of Cor- 
vara, the Anti-Pope was no more, having before his 
death confessed himself a heretic. The reigning Pope, 
whose whole pontificate was a tacit reproach on the 
turbulence and avarice of his predecessor, would gladly 
have met the repentant Emperor half-way, had not the 
jealous tyranny of the French King raised such obstacles 
that reconciliation became hopeless ; for Benedict was 
wiser in speech than in deeds, and had not what the 
French call "the courage of his opinions." The Emperor 
at length resolved to espouse the English cause against 
France, a determination which was precipitated by the 
intelligence that Philip had already seized upon Cambrai 
and certain other towns belonging to the Empire. It 

was in vain that the Pope wrote to Edward 
C t°C fe bkn e warning and entreating him not to imperil 

his soul by allying himself with a rebel, 
under the ban of the Church. A conference was ar- 



1338. Openi?ig of the Campaign. 69 

ranged to take place between the King and the Em- 
peror at Coblentz, where the Diet, or meeting of the 
Electors of the Empire was about to be held. Edward 
attended with a numerous and costly retinue ; and his 
progress from Antwerp thither may be minutely traced 
by a detailed statement, still extant in the King's "Ward- 
robe Book," of his lavish expenditure on the way. A throne 
was erected for each monarch in the market place, and 
there they took their seats, surrounded by 17,000 gentle- 
men, knights, nobles and sovereigns, who owed fealty to 
the Emperor. He held a sceptre in his right hand, and 
a globe in his left, while a knight, on whom that honour 
devolved by inheritance, held a drawn sword over his 
head. 

The ceremony began by the declaration of a protest 
against the pretensions of the Pope in claiming authority 
to annul the decision of the electors, "whereas the Im- 
perial dignity and power came from God alone." Edward 
then rose, and addressing the Emperor as supreme over 
Christendom in things temporal, called him to witness 
that Philip, in defiance of justice, kept forcible possession 
of hereditary English territories in France, and usurped 
the crown of that country, which belonged of right to 
himself, as the inheritance of his mother. The German 
sovereign signified his assent to these charges, and de- 
clared that Philip, having also invaded the Imperial fiefs, 
was deprived of all protection from the Emperor till he 
had made restitution. He concluded by formally ap- 
pointing the English King his Vicar-General in all parts 
of the Empire lying east of the Rhine, and ordering all 
the princes of the Low Countries to follow him in war 
for the space of seven years. 

Again and again did the Pope write to Edward warn- 
ing him against uniting himself with Lewis, " neither 



70 Edward the Third, A.D. 

King nor Emperor," whom he accused, in the "forcible 
feeble" Latin of Papal Bulls, of favouring "detestable 
heresies," and "horrible horrors," and "usurping the 
title of Emperor with detestable temerity." Once more 
ambassadors were sent, at the eleventh hour, to treat for 
peace with " Philip our cousin." Nothing, however, 
came of these overtures, for shortly afterwards we find 
the English King signing an agreement with the Dukes 
of Styria and Carinthia for the hire of 200 men-at-arms 
to fight with "Philip, calling himself King of France;" 
and at length, after many delays, caused by 
Rendezvous foe vacillations of Philip and the Duke of 

at Mechlin. \ 

Brabant, Edward, as Vicar of the Empire, 
summoned all his allies to meet him by a certain day, at 
Mechlin. This time his citation was promptly obeyed, 
for thither came the shifty Duke of Brabant himself, and 
all the rest, with the Margrave of Brandenburg, the last 
being the son of the Emperor, whom that potentate had 
sent with 100 lances as his representative. The arrival 
of this prince must have been an agreeable surprise to 
the English sovereign ; for Philip had despatched John, 
King of Bohemia, who afterwards fell at Creci, as his 
emissary to the Emperor ; and had persuaded him to 
return Edward's money, on the ground that it was un- 
worthy of his imperial position to be in the pay of another 
Power. 

And now Edward, in September 1339, having first, 
according to feudal custom, formally defied King Philip, 

opened the campaign by marching upon 
Cambrai Cambrai with an army of some 40,000 men. 

The city was strong and well defended, and 
the Allies, seeing little progress made and the winter ap- 
proaching, resolved, under the advice of Artois, to raise 
the siege and invade the kingdom of France. When 



l 339' The English and French at Vironfosse. 71 

the army reached the banks of the Scheldt, the boundary 
of the Empire, the Counts of Hainault and Namur, who 
had joined the army on its march, fell back ; declaring 
that the authority of the Imperial Vicar expired the 
moment he set foot on the territory of the French King, 
for whom, as their feudal chief, they must henceforth 
fight if they fought at all. 

Edward, too deeply imbued with the spirit of feudal 
chivalry to show any resentment at this desertion, dis- 
missed his punctilious allies with thanks for past ser- 
vices, and advancing into France, ravaged and burnt 
the country seventy-two leagues wide, from Bapaume to 
St. Quentin. When Philip heard that the invader had 
entered France, he marched to meet him, supported, on 
his side, by the Kings of Bohemia and Scotland, the 
King Consort of Navarre, and a great array of princes 
and nobles, as far as Vironfosse, where he took up his 
position. Thither a herald was sent from Edward's camp 
to demand a battle ; and on the morning of the day ap- 
pointed both kings heard "mass, each among his own 
people at his own quarters, and many took the Sacra- 
ment and confessed themselves." Edward then mar- 
shalled his forces on foot, and, as afterwards at Creci, in 
three divisions, with the archers and Welsh lancers in 
front of the men-at-arms ; and mounting his palfrey, 
rode from " battle to battle," recommending to his troops 
"the care of his honour." Philip also drew up his 
forces, and in such brilliant array that the chronicler 
Froissart breaks out into rapturous admiration of the 
sight of the army ready for the combat. But Vironfosse 
was not destined to be one of the world's famous battle- 
fields, for, at the last moment apparently, an appeal was 
made to Philip's reason, and another to his superstition, 
which induced him to decline an engagement and march 



72 Edward the Third. a.d. 

his troops away to Paris. His Council represented to 
him that the lateness of the season would soon compel 
the English to retire, and it was in his own power, by 
declining battle, to render the invasion fruitless without 
having to strike a blow. At the same time letters were 
brought him from Robert, Count of Provence and King 
of Sicily, who had the reputation of a consummate as- 
trologer, prognosticating certain defeat if he ever en- 
countered the King of England in person on the field. 
In a very interesting extant letter describing this cam- 
paign to his son at home, Edward says that on the day 
after that fixed for the battle Philip had taken up a 
stronger position, and " so hastily that i ,000 of his horse- 
men had sunk in a marsh," and that on the day follow- 
ing, the allies, ascertaining that the French 
p^p were in retreat, declared that they would 

withdraws J 

without stay no longer. He had then no choice but 

to retire upon Brussels, and, if possible, find 
means for defraying the enormous debt incurred by this 
altogether unprofitable expedition. 

Some idea of the cost of campaigning in these days 
may be gathered from an account which has been pre- 
served of the expenses of the army before 
Cost of r . . 

campaign- Calais a few years later. From this it ap- 
pears that bishops and earls received 6s. Sd. 
a day, barons 45., knights 2s., and guides and esquires 
is. Mounted archers and hoblers (or irregular light 
cavalry) were paid 6d. a day, bowmen on foot 3^., 
Welshmen id. For another expedition like the present 
a few years later, there were ordered 7300 bows, 349,200 
arrows, 2,000 separate heads for arrows, 50 dozen square 
cords for the bows. " Painted " bows were worth is. 6d., 
each, "white" bows I2d. } the sheaf of 24 arrows i2d., 
and the arrow heads were 12 a penny ; which prices may 



134°- Letter of Benedict XII 73 

be multiplied by 15, if we wish to compare them with 
those of the present day. While his army lay before 
Cambrai, Edward had written to Archbishop Stratford 
and the Duke of Cornwall, authorising them " to receive 
fines, to grant pardons, to sell permission to marry the 
wards of the Crown," and to raise money by all other 
expedients known under the feudal system. On his re- 
turn to Brussels from the expedition, finding himself in 
great straits for money, he determined to sail for England 
to raise what was needful to pay his debts, and to provide 
for a new campaign, on which he had already resolved. 
Before starting, however, he formed, under the advice of 
Van Arteveldt, a new treaty, offensive and defensive, with 
the Duke of Brabant, in which the chief cities of Flanders 
were included. The Flemings, by a separate instrument, 
agreed to recognise him as King of France, declare war 
against that kingdom, and begin the new campaign in 
the spring, with the siege of Tournai. He then, to satisfy 
the remaining scruples of the French Flemings, for the 
first time quartered the fleurs-de-lys with the English 
leopards, adopting the motto " Dieu et mon droit." It 
must not pass unnoticed that on the very day on which 
the commissioners of the treaty with the Flemish cities 
were appointed, he again authorised ambassadors to treat 
with their exiled Count Louis for the marriage of his 
daughter with the heir of Flanders. 

And now once more the Pope wrote to Edward, en- 
deavouring to persuade him to break off his alliance with 
the Emperor and make peace with the King 
of France, urging that his Flemish and Ger- Con-e- 
man friends were not to be trusted ; that when ^th Bene- 
it suited their purpose u they would leave him dlct XIL 
to shift for himself, and shuffle their burdens from off 
their own backs on to his;" and even offering to go 



74 Edward the Third. a.d. 

himself to negotiate personally with the English King. 
On receiving the Pope's letter, Edward again made 
friendly overtures to Philip, but suddenly growing as 
weary as all readers of this history must be, of fruitless 
negotiations, he issued a proclamation from Ghent which 
he ordered to be fixed to the doors of all Flemish churches 
in places bordering on France. In this document he 
again recited his claim to the French crown, which had 
been usurped by Philip of Valois, who, taking advantage 
of his tender years and ignorance of law, had extorted 
from him a homage prejudicial to his rights; and had, 
further, invaded his lands in Guienne, assisted his rebel- 
lious subjects in Scotland, and harassed his commerce in 
the narrow seas. He therefore proclaimed to all men 
that he revoked his homage, and took upon himself the 
royal dignity of France, of which he was the rightful 
heir. This step of Edward's drew a final remonstrance 
from the Pope. The letter which Benedict wrote on this 
occasion was very unlike the usual style of Papal corre- 
spondence, representing as it did, in wise, temperate and 
affectionate language that the English King's ambition 
was likely to lead to great disasters and disgrace ; — that 
the Flemings and the Teutons, notorious for their incon- 
stancy and disloyalty, would leave him in the lurch as 
soon as his treasures were exhausted ; — that he had acted 
hastily in assuming the royal arms and title of France 
before he had advanced one single step towards the con- 
quest of that country ; — that the attempt to make himself 
King of France against the wishes of the people was 
impracticable and hopeless ; — and, as for abstract right, 
that he could have no legal pretensions to the crown un- 
less females were capable of inheriting, which was con- 
trary to the immemorial custom of the kingdom ; — and 
that, if females were capable of transmitting an inheri- 



i34°- Edward returns to England. 75 

tance which they could not themselves enjoy, there were 
others then living, the offspring of daughters of French 
kings, and nearer in the line of direct succession than 
Edward himself. This last statement was true, and im- 
portant in its bearing upon the question at issue. At the 
time when Edward first put forward his claim in 1328, he 
based it upon the fact that he was the nearest male rela- 
tive of the king last deceased ; but in the year 1332 Joan, 
Queen of Navarre, daughter of King Louis Hutin, had 
given birth to a son, who, on her death, became King of 
Navarre, and who ought now, by the reasoning on which 
Edward relied, to have been King of France (page 186). 

The Pope's letter was unfortunately a long time on its 
way, and only reached Edward after he had returned to 
England, and had already gone too far to withdraw, in 
his preparations for his second French campaign. 

His creditors would not allow him to leave Flanders 
till he had promised solemnly to return within a certain 
time, leaving four English earls as hostages 
in the hands of his allies. Queen Philippa returns to 

also remained in Flanders, being in expec- 
tation of the birth of her fifth child, who was born during 
his father's absence, and was christened John, and was 
surnamed of Gaunt (that is, Ghent) after the place of his 
nativity. 

While the King was away from England on his wars a 
Parliament had been held which is remarkable as being 
the first in which the influence of the Com- 

Proceedings 

mons in legislation is clearly traceable. The in Pariia- 
pressure of the King's necessities was then Oct. 13, 
beginning indirectly, but not less surely, to I339- 
break down the strongholds of feudal prerogative and 
to promote the cause of political independence. Arch- 
bishop Stratford, the Chancellor, who had just come 



76 Edward the Third. a.d. 

back from the campaign, addressing the " Grauntz " (or 
great men), the nobles, prelates, and also the Commons 
of the realm (the last probably admitted as it were " to 
the bar" of the house), declared to them how the King 
was no less than ^300,000 in debt, and required a liberal 
subsidy to pay off his creditors and to prosecute the war. 
Though there had been but little in the first campaign 
to gratify the national pride, no question of the expedi- 
ency of undertaking a second seems to have been raised 
in Parliament. A vote of a tenth was proposed by the 
King's Council in the nobles' chamber, to which they 
agreed, but upon certain conditions ; among others that 
a charter should be granted to them providing that the 
maletolt {or " illegally enhanced'' wool tax), which had 
begun in the reign of Edward I. and had been recently 
levied, should never be levied again, and that the grant 
now to be made should not be drawn into a precedent. 
The Commons, who for deliberation had separated from 
the nobles after hearing the Chancellor's statement, now 
declared that they could not grant the aid without first 
consulting "the commons of their counties," a stipula- 
tion which carries us on in thought to our own times. It 
is important to note the diffident tone of the Commons 
at this period, and their evident reluctance to undertake 
the responsibilities of legislation, as compared with the 
loud and peremptory language of their remonstrances 
in the later years of the reign. For example, their opin- 
ion was asked as to the best means of protecting the 
south coasts and the commerce of the country against 
the ravages of the French. The island of Jersey had 
been taken, and the English shipping and the dwellers 
on the southern seaboard were at Philip's mercy, of which 
they received but little, for his policy was one of aggres- 
sion, audacity, and destruction abroad, as it was one of 



134°- Diffidence of the Commons. 77 

protraction and avoidance at home. The Commons 
answered that these were matters of which they had no 
knowledge, and begged to be " excused for advising 
upon them ;" that "this was the business of the wardens 
of the Cinque Ports, ' who had honours above all the 
commons of the land,' and who paid no taxes, because 
on them devolved the duty of guarding the coasts." They 
also begged that two sword-girt knights, not sheriffs or 
royal officers, should be summoned from each shire to 
the next Parliament, to represent the Commons. 

When the Commons re-assembled Jan. 19, 1340, after 
consulting their "constituents," they agreed to make a 

grant of ^0,000 sacks of wool in considera- m „ 

• r 1 j c • j The Com - 

tion of the redress of grievances, and an mons grant 

immediate and unconditional subsidy of 
2,050 sacks, as the king's wants were urgent. Selected 
representatives of the mariners of the Cinque Ports were 
summoned to attend the Parliament, and they and other 
guardians of the coasts agreed to furnish 100 ships, half 
at their own cost and half at that of the Government. 
Before the grant had been actually made, King Edward 
returned, and attended in person at a session held in 
March 1 340, to which a large number of merchants were 
invited to come for a " colloquy," to discuss the state of 
affairs and submit their opinion to the Parliament. The 
system of summoning special "class" parliaments, was 
very often acted upon in Edward's reign, and their fre- 
quency is an evidence of the growing importance of the 
interests of what may be called, by anticipation, the 
middle class. They have been aptly compared to the 
"commissions " of the present day, whose business it is 
to collect facts and evidence, and to express opinions in- 
tended to serve as a basis for future legislation. The 
Parliament of 1340 finally agreed to make the King an 



78 Edward the Third. a.d. 

extraordinary grant for two years to come, of the "9th 
lamb, 9th fleece, and 9th sheaf." The tithe would seem 
to have been first deducted, and then one part taken for 
the King's use, i. e., the 9th part of 10-less-by-i. The 
citizens and burgesses were to grant the "9th part of 
(the estimated value of) their chattels," and "foreign 
merchants not living in cities, and others that dwell in 
forests and wastes, and did not live of tillage or store of 
sheep, were to be set lawfully at the value of the fifteen," 
but " the poor and those that lived of their labour " were 
not to be liable to the fifteenth. They further granted 
405. to be taken of every last of leather, 40s . of every sack 
of wool, and 405. of every 300 woolfels (or skins with the 
fleece on) that passed the sea. It should be borne in 
mind that the " Counties Palatine " Durham and Chester, 
being unrepresented in the Commons, were also exempt 
from Parliamentary taxation ; they, however, made a like 
grant on their own account, and the clergy gave a ninth 
of their sheaves, fleeces, and lambs. 

In return for these very liberal subsidies, among the 
concessions granted were : — 

(1.) That special High Commissioners should be ap- 
pointed at every Parliament to hear complaints of the 
delay of justice, and to give judgment themselves. 

(2.) That the sheriffs, who seem to have abused their 
powers, should, instead of holding their places for ten 
years, as hitherto, be elected for one year only. 

(3.) That the law of Edward I. should be re-enacted, 
requiring an uniform standard of weights and measures 
throughout the kingdom. 

(4.) That the present subsidy should not be made a 
precedent for additional imposts, but that henceforth all 
grants in aid should be given only by consent of all the 
estates of Parliament. 



1 34°- Way of making Laws. 79 

(5.) That the King's taking the title of King of France 
should never be held to imply subjection of the English 
to the French Crown. 

(6.) That a restraint should be put upon the arbitrary 
powers of the King's purveyors. These were officers 
whose duty it was, not, as now, to sell, but to buy, pro- 
visions, forage, and other supplies for the king's use, 
especially on his journeys ; and it was henceforth pro- 
vided that they should not compel people to sell to them 
save only at a price agreed upon between buyer and 
seller ; that the sheriff of the county should state the 
number of the king's horses "for which, and no more," 
purveyance was to be made ; and that he should take 
care that the county was not overcharged as to the num- 
ber of grooms in the King's retinue, but that there should 
be " for every horse a knave, without bringing women 
pages or dogs with them." The laws for the restraint of 
purveyance were re-enacted again and again — notably in 
the Parliaments of 135 1 and 1362, in the latter of which 
(such was the hatred inspired by their exactions) it was or- 
dained that for the future the "henious" name of "pur- 
veyor " should be changed to that of " buyer." This Act 
may be regarded as the most distinctively marked step of 
constitutional progress in the reign of Edward III. 

The form of proceeding in making laws will be under- 
stood from a description of the steps taken in Parliament 
on this occasion. A petition was presented to the King 
begging for redress of grievance, the introduction of a 
new enactment or the readjustment of an old one; and 
the Commons presented their " petitions " with profound 
submission, kneeling on their knees. The 

. . . Way of 

King acting through his Council, considered making 

the prayers of the petition, and, as the case 

might be, granted or rejected, or reserved them for 



So Edward the Third. a.d. 

future consideration. The petitions to which the King 
acceded were then embodied in a Statute, or Act of Par- 
liament. The Statute began with a confirmation of 
rights and liberties previously granted ; then followed a 
recitation of the prayers of the petitions with the answer 
to them, in the form of enactments, of an affirmative or 
a negative, a permissive or a prohibitory character. New 
statutes, before the invention of printing, were made 
known to the people by written copies being sent to all 
the sheriffs, who were directed to have them " published 
and cried in every county in England, at all courts, 
fairs, and markets." 

Edward was now nearly ready for his second invasion 
of France. But as the last subsidy voted by the Parlia- 
ment was chiefly in kind, he had to borrow 20,000 marks 
of the City of London, ,£11,720 from one Anthony Bach 
(to redeem his " great golden crown and the little crown " 
out of pawn at Treves) ; and issued a commission to the 
Bishop of Lincoln and others to raise money for him, 
" because," he wrote, " you know that, for the conduct of 
our war in parts beyond sea, and also for the salvation 
of our kingdom of England and of the English Church, 
we are obliged to spend innumerable sums of money 
every day." 

Just as he was on the point of starting, information 

was brought to Archbishop Stratford that 

s^iIon d his Kin S phili P had £ ot together a large fleet, 

second manned bv Normans and Genoese, and that 

expedition ^ J 

against it was lying in the harbour of Sluys, ready 

to intercept the King's passage. Edward, 
who possessed his full share of the fierce courage of his 
Angevin ancestors, chafed rather than daunted by this 
alarming intelligence, issued an order that every avail- 
able vessel in the southern and eastern ports should be 



134°- Battle of Sluys. 81 

impressed, manned with soldiers, and got ready for 
fighting. The Archbishop, having vainly warned the 
King of his danger, resigned his office of Chancellor, 
and Admiral Sir Robert Morley entreated him to desist 
from so dangerous an undertaking ; but he only flew into 
a rage, exclaiming, " I shall go ; those who are afraid 
where no fear is may stay at home." 

The English fleet, some 200 strong, but composed of 
all sorts of craft, set sail from Orewell in the forenoon of 
June 22, 1340, and the next evening, coming to anchor 
off Blankenburg, discovered in the still distant harbour 
of Sluys a forest of masts just visible above an interven- 
ing neck of land. Three knights were put on shore to 
reconnoitre, and brought word that they had counted 200 
ships of war, besides smaller vessels, and nineteen ships 
so large that they had never seen the like, and with them 
the English " Christopher," taken by the French the year 
before. In a curious and interesting letter from his 
father to Prince Edward, preserved in the archives of the 
city of London — the earliest extant " despatch " giving 
account of a naval engagement — the number of the 
enemy's ships is given as 190, but this would seem to be 
an under-estimate if, as the King also states, their fleet 
carried 35,000 men. During the night the 
enemy left their moorings, and were seen at Sluys, 

daybreak drawn up in four lines across the 
passage of the estuary on which the port of Sluys opens. 
Their ships were chained together, and carried towers 
on their tops, filled with stones and other missiles to 
hurl down upon the decks of the English vessels. King 
Edward's first care was to place " fifty noble ladies of 
honour," who were going abroad to wait on Queen 
Philippa, in light, swift sailers under a strong guard. 
He next stood out to sea, in order to get wind and sun 

G 



82 Edward the Third. a.d. 

in his rear, and then bore down with irresistible force 
and speed on the foremost line of the enemy. As soon 
as they had got within range, the English bowmen 
poured in such a volley of arrows that the Genoese cross- 
bowmen in the French ships, so far from being able 
effectively to reply, were driven from the decks ; and at 
the first shock of ship against ship the English men-at- 
arms boarded with loud shouts, sword and axe in hand, 
and struck down all resistance. The " Christopher " 
was soon recaptured, manned with exulting English 
sailors and archers, and advancing with the rest broke 
the second line, and poured down destruction from her 
lofty decks on the smaller vessels composing it. At this 
moment arrived Sir R. Morley with the fleet of the north- 
ern ports, upon which a panic struck the third line, and 
the men, knowing that their ships were inextricably 
grappled together, leaped in their terror into the sea, and 
it is said that in this way no less than 2,000 perished. 
The fourth line, consisting of sixty large vessels, still 
remained unbroken, and continued to offer a gallant re- 
sistance to the English fleet, till nightfall enabled the few 
which were not altogether disabled to make good their 
retreat. It is said that of the English navy two ships 
only were lost, while out of the great fleet of the French 
a few stragglers only escaped, and 25,000 to 30,000 men 
were slain. 

And now, arriving at the scene of his intended opera- 
tions with plenty of ready money and the fresh renown 
of his victory, the English King found no difficulty in 
mustering his allies for the long-planned siege of Tournai. 
That city was at once invested by an army 
Siege of f more than 100,000 men, 40,000 of whom 

Tournai. ' ^ ' 

were Flemish troops, led by Van Arteveldt ; 
while another host scarcely inferior in numbers advanced 



134°- Siege of Tou?-?iai. 83 

under Robert of Artois to the siege of St. Omer. This 
latter force met with a disaster which no human foresight 
could have provided against. After a repulse under the 
walls of St. Omer, Robert was encamped in the vale of 
Cassel. A detachment of his army having been sur- 
prised in the village of Arques, some of the fugitives had 
reached his camp in the middle of the night ; upon which 
a sudden and unaccountable panic arose and spread 
through the host, giving a colour to the popular belief 
that D' Artois was bewitched ; and an army of 50,000 
men, tearing down their tents, and leaving baggage and 
arms behind them, fled in every direction and dispersed 
themselves over the country. 

Tournai meanwhile was bravely defended by a garri- 
son of 30,000, and Philip, with a great following, had 
advanced to its relief. Matters seemed now to be draw- 
ing nigh a crisis ; but the crisis never came, for the 
French King had determined again to try his hitherto 
successful policy of exhausting the resources and the 
patience of his rival by a " masterly inactivity" and 
avoidance of battle. Edward, chafing at delay, which 
he had before found so fatal, wrote to King Philip a letter 
highly characteristic of the chivalric customs and modes 
of thought then dominant in Europe. It was dated in 
the " first year of our reign over France and the four- 
teenth over England," and proposed to Philip of Valois 
to fight at a given time and place, either in single com- 
bat, or each at the head of 100 men, or each at the head 
of his army." Philip answered that he had seen a letter 
brought to his Court for " Philip of Valois," but as it was 
manifestly not addressed to Aim, it was not for him to 
reply to it ; but he took the opportunity of saying, " Since 
you, in breach of your liege homage and fealty, have 
entered our territory, and done great damage to our 



84 Edward the Third. A.D. 

realm, we intend to chase you out of it when we think 
proper." The siege apparently making no progress, 
Edward determined to reduce the garrison by starvation. 
But he was getting tired out, and his attention was de- 
manded elsewhere, for Philip's lieutenants in the south 
had occupied a great part of Guienne, and the Scots, 
aided by France, had recaptured Edinburgh, and were 
making a raid into the northern counties of England. 
He was therefore disposed to come to terms, and Philip, 
who had reason to know that the provisions of the gar- 
rison would hold out but a few days longer, was ready to 
meet him half-way. At this juncture Jane, Countess 
Dowager of Hainault, mother of the Queen of England 
and sister of the Queen of France, came out of the con- 
vent in which she had lived since her husband's death, 
to the English camp, and on her knees besought Edward 
to raise the siege. A truce for nine months, in which 
Scotland and Aquitaine were included, having been 
agreed upon, Edward withdrew sullenly and reluctantly 
from before Tournai, weighed down with debt and em- 
bittered by the failure of his second great undertaking. 

He had repeatedly written home to his ministers for 
money ; but the supply sent had fallen far short of his 
expectations, and indeed of the sum granted by Parlia- 
ment. 

Suspicions of the fidelity and disinterestedness of his 
ministers, and especially of the Archbishop, beginning 
to be whispered to the King by sycophantic and pro- 
fligate courtiers, who hated Stratford for his lofty and 
perhaps somewhat aggressive morality, he stole away 
with his Oueen to Zealand, leaving the Earl 

Edward s ~ 

sudden of Derby " in pawn " for his debts ; and then 

crossing the Channel — a three days' passage, 

in rough November weather — he sailed unannounced 



1340- Archbishop Stratford. 85 

up the Thames, and landed at midnight under the 
Tower. 

Edward had doubtless real causes of exasperation. 
Moreover kings are but men, and no man's temper is 
the better after his bile has been churned for sixty or 
seventy hours at sea. His mood on landing was so bitter 
and savage that he seemed only to look for victims on 
whom to visit his displeasure, He found the Tower un- 
guarded, so that pirates or French marauders might have 
entered it as easily as himself, and instantly threw the 
governor and his officers into prison. Next morning he 
arrested the Lord Treasurer, and the High Chancellor 
Robert Stratford, brother, and successor in that office, of 
the Archbishop, — " for having neglected," as was alleged, 
"to raise or duly transmit to the King the moneys 
granted by Parliament." Both being bishops, they could 
not legally be imprisoned, and had to be immediately re- 
leased. But the Great Seal was committed to Sir Robert 
Bouchier, and the Treasury to another layman. The 
Archbishop, on whom the chief odium rested as presi- 
dent of the defaulting Council, the moment 
he heard of the King's arrival, fled to Can- Archbishop 

& ' Stratford. 

terbury and took refuge in the Priory of 
Christ Church, not because he was guilty, as at first sight 
appeared, but because he knew that the King, in his present 
unreasonable mood, would hold him responsible for evils 
which he had done his best to counteract. He was now 
summoned to appear before his Sovereign, but instead of 
obeying, he wrote him a letter accusing him of having by 
his acts, done under evil advice, contravened the Great 
Charter, and the laws which by his coronation oath he 
was bound to maintain, to the great peril of his soul ; and 
reminding him of the lessons to be learned from the fate 
of his father, whose arbitrary acts had cost him the love 



86 Edward the Third. a.d. 

of his people. This letter being unanswered, he then 
preached a sermon to the same effect in Canterbury Ca- 
thedral, which he concluded by excommunicating all 
(except the King and his family) who should " disturb 
the peace of the realm or lay violent hands on the 
clergy." Upon this the King wrote to the Prior of Christ 
Church a letter for general publication, in which he laid 
the whole of the blame of the miscarriage of the expedi- 
tion at the Archbishop's door. Stratford replied by an- 
other political sermon, in which he argued that it was not 
possible to collect the taxes of a whole year during the 
two months which the siege of Tournai lasted, and that 
had they been collected, "they were already forestalled 
and mortgaged for debts before contracted." This dis- 
course he got written out by his scribes, and copies were 
sent round to be read aloud in every church in his 
province ; at the same time he wrote to the King advising 
him to summon a Parliament, before which he declared 
that he was ready to answer for himself. To this step the 
King's councillors replied by the document known as the 
"Famosus Libellus," which was sent to all the bishops, 
deans, and chapters for publication. It contained a re- 
capitulation of all the charges against the Archbishop 
already urged and already repelled, in the course of 
which they compared him to a" reed running into the 
hand that leans thereon," and applied to him as the 
King's most trusted counsellor the vulgar adage, " Mus 
in pera, serpens in gremio, ignis in sinu." They further 
stated that the Archbishop, though furnished with a safe- 
conduct, had refused to appear except in full Parliament, 
which, at that time, "ex causis rationabilibus," could not 
conveniently be held. 

At length, however, a Parliament was summoned, and 
Stratford came up to London, crossed the river with a 



I34 1 - Impeachment of Stratford. 87 

grand retinue of bishops, priests, knights and men-at- 
arms, and presented himself at the door of 

A.D. 1341. 

Westminster Hall. He was refused admit- 
tance by the King's seneschal and chamberlain till he 
had first appeared in the Court of Exchequer. With this 
requirement he complied, but on again presenting him- 
self at the door of Parliament, he found the entrance 
barred as before by the King's officers. The Peers, how- 
ever, began to show signs of resenting this violation of their 
privileges and petitioned the King to reaffirm the rule 
that a Peer impeached by the Crown should not be com- 
pelled to plead before any other tribunal than the High 
Court of Parliament. The King at first made difficulties, 
but the necessity of procuring a supply triumphed over 
his reluctance and compelled him to give his assent. He 
was induced to do so the more readily because he was 
beginning to feel the loss of the Archbishop's counsels 
and wished for a reconciliation with him. Stratford's 
enemies drew up articles of accusation, which he met 
openly in Parliament, demanding a trial before his peers 
in accordance with the Great Charter. A committee was 
appointed to investigate the rights of the case, but the 
day after, the King came down to Parliament and de- 
clared in the presence of that assembly that he admitted 
the Archbishop to his grace, and acquitted him of all the 
charges brought against him. Two years afterwards the 
proceedings of the impeachment were formally pro- 
nounced to be null and void, but in the meantime, and 
up to the time of his death, Stratford was again the most 
confidential adviser of the King. The age of Edward III. 
was barren of great statesmen, but Stratford was one of 
the best and most disinterested of that King's advisers : 
"The only reward he got," as we are told, "was that 
upon his death Edward confiscated and seized for his 






88 Edward the Third. a.d. 

own use, all that the Archbishop left behind him." His 
case is chiefly noteworthy as affording probably the first, 
and certainly the latest, instance of a prelate's right to be 
tried as a peer " by his peers " being recognized by Par- 
liament. 

The next measure brought forward in the session was 
the inevitable demand for redress of grievances. The 
King granted all the prayers of the petitioners, and with 
an alacrity which must have surprised those members 
who were not acquainted with the fact that he had 
previously signed a paper secretly protesting against them 
as prejudicial to the rights of the Crown and extorted 
from him under pressure of necessity. Edward had 
come with very little dignity or credit out of his conflict 
with the Archbishop ; but the course which he took in 
respect of these petitions can only be described as 
sneaking, treacherous, and, morality apart, altogether 
unworthy of the "foremost knight of Europe." They 
related chiefly to the privileges of Peers already recog- 
nized, and to the malversation of the Royal officers, who 
as the law stood, were practically irresponsible. It was 
therefore demanded that in every Parliament — which 
body it will be borne in mind was at this time as a 
general rule elected and dissolved every year — "the King 
should, on the third day, take into his hands the offices 
of all the ministers, thus to abide for four or five days, 
so that they be put to answer to every complaint, and if 
default be found be punished by judgment of the Peers." 
An express exemption was made in favour of the Barons 
of the Exchequer and the Justices of King's Bench and 
Common Pleas. Nothing could be more reasonable and 
moderate than these petitions, and the King gave them 
his royal assent, had them as usual embodied in a statute 
and published under the Great Seal. Yet four months 



I34 1 - Treacherous Conduct of the King. 89 

later, with an almost cynical disregard of honour and 
morality, he issued a circular to the sheriffs of the coun- 
ties stating that the "obstinacy of the Parliament in de- 
manding things contrary to the laws and customs of our 
realm of England, and to our prerogatives and rights 
royal, compelled us to dissimulate, and pretend to grant 
what was contrary to sound policy ; and we now there- 
fore will and decree that the said statute be null and 
void." 

It will hardly be wondered at that after taking such a 
step as this the King hesitated for two years to face a 
new Parliament. At the expiration of that time, how- 
ever, he had the effrontery and the address to prevail on 
that body (assuring them that their requests would be 
granted in substance without it), to erase by their own 
act and authority the obnoxious instrument from the 
Statute Book. Churchmen have not failed to remark 
that this revocation of the statute, the most indefensible 
act of Edward's reign, was perpetrated while the King 
was acting under the advice of a lay ministry, and the 
first lay Chancellor. 



SECOND DECADE.— A. D. 1337-1347. 



CHAPTER II. 

TRANSACTIONS IN SCOTLAND, BRITTANY, AND GUIENNE. 

The twelve months after Stratford's impeachment were 
taken up by the English and French Kings 
in simultaneous negotiations for peace and 
preparations for war. Edward gained new allies in 



90 Edward the Third. a.d. 

the Kings of Arragon and Majorca, but experienced a 
„ discouraging: blow in the desertion of the 

Emperor & & 

withdraws Emperor, who was persuaded by Philip to 
English back out of the English alliance ; writing a 

alliance. letter which he began by offering himself as 

mediator between England and France, and concluded 
by withdrawing from King Edward the title which he had 
conferred of Imperial Vicar. As the feudatory princes 
of the Empire could, after this, no longer fight under the 
English banner, and as, about the same time, the Scots 
were beginning to cause alarm in the north of England, 
King Edward might now have been disposed to give 
effect to the peace negotiations which were continually 
on foot, had not an unexpected combination of affairs 
arisen, which rekindled his hopes, and opened for him a 
pathway into the heart of France. 

But before resuming the main thread of the war it may 
be as well to describe the events which had 

A. D. 1341. 

Affairs of taken place north of the Tweed during the 

English King's absence on the Continent. 
In 1336 he had left the command of his army in Scot- 
land to three English earls, for Balliol, though titular 
King, had by Edward's orders withdrawn beyond the 
border, and occupied himself in defending the Marches. 
The adherents of the Bruce, after the violent disruption 
of their latest compromise with England — a compromise 
by which one of the chiefs of the national party had been 
appointed Governor of Scotland in Balliol's name — had 
placed themselves under the leadership of the gallant 
Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell, as regent for the young 
King of Scotland, now self-exiled, as will be remem- 
bered, in France. 

Dunbar, a fortress of great strength and importance 
belonging to the Earl of March, was besieged by the 



I34 1 - Black Agnes of Dunbar. 91 

English under the Earl of Salisbury, and its obstinate de- 
fence afforded the first of the many exam- 
ples of female heroism in the reign of Ed- Dunbar, 
ward III., Black Agnes of Dunbar, Countess 
of March, and daughter of the famous Randolph, Earl of 
Murray, kept the besiegers for five months at bay, sharing 
the dangers and privations of the siege with the men of 
the garrison, taking her rounds upon the ramparts, en- 
couraging her soldiers, and scoffing at the efforts of the 
enemy. Two ships from England had come to help the 
besiegers, and barred the mouth of the port against the 
entrance of supplies ; but a gallant Scotch captain ran the 
blockade in the darkness of night and introduced a ship- 
load of provisions, upon which Salisbury, in despair of 
reducing the place, withdrew from the siege. The Scotch 
not only held their own, but drove the English for refuge 
out of the open country within the walls of five great for- 
tresses, two of which before long fell into their 
hands. Perth and Stirling offered a more £ nd u f 

° Perth. 

vigorous resistance. Robert the Steward, now 
sole Regent of Scotland, on the death of Murray of Both- 
well, laid siege to Perth, and sent off Sir William Douglas, 
the " Knight of Liddesdale" and the " flower of chivalry," 
to France for help, just at the time when King Edward 
was advancing to the siege of Cambrai. For ten weeks 
the Regent continued to assault the stronghold of Perth, 
and had almost despaired of taking it when Douglas 
sailed up the Tay with five French ships of war, whose 
arrival dismayed the hearts of the English garrison. The 
actual surrender of the castle, however, is attributed to 
the occurrence of an eclipse at midday, which lasted two 
hours, and held both armies in suspense and superstitious 
terror. The Scotch were the first to recover from this 
stupor, and made so sudden and fierce an assault upon 



92 Edward the Third. a.d. 

the defences that the garrison at once laid down their 
arms. It is related, as showing the dreadful condition to 
which the country was reduced by these wars, that soon 
after the siege of Perth the wild deer came down from the 
mountains and wandered about in herds under the walls 
of the town. Stirling was next invested, and it was the 
siege of this stronghold which now, as once before with 
such disastrous consequences, provoked an English Ed- 
ward to put himself at the head of an army and march 
northward to chastise the Scotch. The King got as far as 
Newcastle on his way, but there he learned that his sup- 
porting fleet had been dispersed by a storm, and that Stir- 
ling had already fallen. Immediately afterwards Sir W. 
Douglas gained possession of Edinburgh by stratagem, 
but by this time the exhaustion of the country was such 
that the Scots were willing to make a truce 
Truce with f or s j x mon th s ; on condition that, unless 

Scotland. ' 

within this time the young King, David 
Bruce, returned to Scotland with a sufficient force to hold 
his own and drive out the English, the Scottish people 
would make their submission to England. This truce 
was, shortly after, extended for two years, during which 
Bruce was able to return to his desolated kingdom. 

The Duchy of Brittany was one of the great fiefs of the 
French crown. The second Duke had, unfortunately 
for his country, married twice, and had male issue by 

both marriages. His first wife bore him three 
ArTairs 3 of" sons — Guy, Count of Penthievre, who died 
Bnttany. during the lifetime of his father, leaving an 

only daughter, Jeanne ; Peter, also, who died young ; 
and John, who succeeded his father in the dukedom. By 
his second wife he had a fourth son, who inherited from 
his mother the title of De Montfort. Guy's daughter, 
Jeanne, married Charles of Blois, King Philip's nephew, 



\ 



1 342. Transactions in Brittany. 93 

being the son of Margaret, his youngest sister. Duke 
John died childless, leaving his half-brother, De Mont- 
fort, male heir to the Duchy ; a position which De Mont- 
fort fully determined to make good, though on his niece's 
marriage to Charles of Blois he had sworn fealty to her 
and her consort. For the principle of the Salic law, which 
regulated the succession to the French throne, does not 
appear to have extended to the fiefs of France; and, 
indeed, Brittany had before passed, and did so again, to 
a female. King Philip therefore did not stultify himself 
as has been said, by espousing the cause of his nephew, 
who claimed, and was actually installed in, the Duchy, 
in right of female inheritance. 

De Montfort was first in the field. By force or intrigue 
he succeeded in gaining possession of the strongholds of 

the Duchy. At Nantes, the capital, he was _ „ 

J r De Mont- 

welcomed and acknowledged by the inhabi- fort gets 

tants, and having secured the treasure ac- of S the S1 ° 

cumulated there by the last duke, he pro- fortresses. 

ceeded to Brest, which he took by storm ; and thence to 
Rennes, which was surrendered to him by the popular 
party, though the nobles, who were throughout the con- 
test on the side of Charles of Blois, would have resisted 
to the last extremity. The strong fortress of Hennebon, 
overlooking the sea, next yielded to him ; then Vannes 
and Auray ; and before his rival had struck a blow De 
Montfort was actually master of Brittany. But now he 
was summoned by King Philip to Paris to submit his 
claims to the decision of the Peers of France, the highest 
tribunal of the realm. He attended with 400 knights in 
his train ; but, on the announcement of the adverse sen- 
tence which he fully expected, he fled from Paris in dis- 
guise, with only four attendants, at the opening of the 
gates in the early morning. His escape was not discov- 



94 Edward the Third. a.d. 

ered till he had rejoined his Countess at Nantes; but 

after a short stay there, knowing that he had 
himself into nothing to expect from his own suzerain but 
the arms of vengeance and punishment, he threw off his 

allegiance and hastening into the presence of 
King Edward, who was then at Windsor, besought his 
protection, and offered to do him liege homage for the 
Duchy of Brittany. Edward, acting under the advice of 
Robert of Artois, accepted his homage, revived in his 
favour the Earldom of Richmond held by his father, and 
promised him the help of England in maintaining his 
quarrel against Charles of Blois. The English King was 
himself predisposed to espouse De Montfort's cause. He 
saw that his own wider and more ambitious designs, now 
checked by the defection of his allies in the north, would 
be furthered by a close alliance with an enterprising, 
valiant, and successful adventurer, who was then in 
actual possession of a territory affording a safe approach, 
to an invader from the west, into the very vitals of 
France. Thus were two aspirants to dominion united 
together by a community of interests, though the abstract 
claims put forward by each were contradictory and mu- 
tually destructive. It was distinctly understood, how- 
ever, that this interference in the affairs of Brittany was 

not to be considered a breach of the peace 
attockhim h between the French and English Kings. 

Meanwhile the royal troops of France, 8,000 
strong, with a levy of 5,000 vassals and 3,000 Genoese 
crossbow-men, under the Duke of Normandy, heir to the 
throne, the Marshal, Lewis of Spain, and a brilliant roll 
of royal dukes and nobles, were advancing into Brittany 
to crush De Montfort. They opened the campaign by 
undermining, and thus taking, the strong border-fortress 
of Chantonceaux, and then advanced down the Loire 



I34 2 - Jeanne de Montfort. 95 

upon Nantes. De Montfort was there, but as yet no re- 
inforcements had arrived from England, and he was 
unable to keep the field against the invading force. By 
the treachery or blundering — it is hard to say which — of 
the governor, Henry of Leon, one of De Montfort's first 
and best friends in Brittany, the city was taken, and in it 
De Montfort himself, who was carried off to Paris and 
imprisoned in the Tower of the Louvre. But his wife, 
Jeanne De Montfort, sister of the count of Flanders, 
" Cceur de Lion," as Froissart calls her, — summoned to- 
gether the people of Rennes, and standing in the mar- 
ket-place, with tears in her eyes and her infant son in her 
arms, called upon them to defend the cause of the child. 
" Sirs,'' she said, " be not dismayed at the loss of my lord ; 
he was but one man, and here you see my little child, 
who will be his restorer, if God will." Her appeal was 
answered by acclamations. Rennes was victualled and 
put in a state of defence, for the Countess was well sup- 
plied with money, and she herself, taking her little son 
with her, went round the country from garrison to gar- 
rison, supplying them with stores and arms, and inspirit- 
ing the troops with her own courage and enthusiasm, 
14 though she wore deep mourning in her heart." At last, 
in anticipation of the arrival of ships from England, she 
shut herself up in the famous fortress of Hennebon, 
which looks down over the estuary of the Blavet upon 
the sea. 

This was in the dead of winter, and she knew that 
with the early spring the army of Charles would be before 
the walls of Hennebon ; so she sent her boy over to 
England into the protection of King Edward, and ur- 
gently entreated the speedy despatch of the promised 
aid ; engaging, on her part, to open to the English King 
all the strong places which she held for her husband, 



96 Edward the Third. a.d. 

and to affiance her son to one of Edward's daughters, 
who was thus to become Duchess of Brittany. 

And now Charles appeared at the head of his forces 

before Hennebon, and the assault began with a vigour 

inspired by the belief that, if only the formid- 

Siegeof a ^ e Countess could be captured and sent to 

Hennebon. r 

join her husband in the Louvre, the war 
would be at an end. No succours arrived from England, 
but the defence made by the garrison was no less deter- 
mined than the attack ; the besiegers were repulsed, and 
more than one successful sally was made into their camp. 
The Countess herself, clad in armour, rode from post to 
post, from street to street ; she made her ladies pick up 
the paving-stones and carry them to the ramparts, from 
whence they could be launched, along with lighted 
brands and quicklime on the heads of the assailants. 
One day, seeing that the French army, intent upon an 
attack, had left their camp unguarded, she sallied forth 
from the opposite side of the fortress at the head of 200 
horse, and set the tents and baggage on fire. Then, find- 
ing her retreat to the gates cut offby a body of the enemy 
she rode for life to a neighbouring castle ; issuing from 
which at an unexpected moment, she fought her way 
back through the French lines to Hennebon, and was 
received with shouts of acclamation by the garrison. 
But fatigue and famine had begun at last to tell upon 
the gallant defenders, and the Bishop of Leon, one of 
the partisans of De Montfort, was, in spite of the entreaties 
of the Countess, already in the French camp, engaged 
in arranging the terms of capitulation, when she, who 
had taken her stand on the ramparts, first caught sight 
of long-expected sails in the offing, and cried out, " I see 
the English succours, the English succours I have so 
longed for!" She was not mistaken : it was a fleet of 



1342. Siege of Hennebon. 97 

forty-five ships which had been detained for sixty days 
by bad weather. They were under the command of Sir 
Walter Manny, one of the most famous knights of his 
time. He had first come over to England in the suite of 
Queen Philippa as her ecuyer trenchant, or "carving 
cavalier," and had already won distinction at Cadsand 
(p. 62), and under the walls of Cambrai in Edward's 
earliest French campaign. Though the newly arrived 
reinforcements were too feeble to enable the Countess to 
raise the siege or to take the field, their presence revived 
the drooping spirits of the defenders. She received Sir 
Walter with splendid hospitality in halls and chambers 
hung with tapestry ; but the whole night long and the 
following day, from one huge catapult, advanced insult- 
ingly near the walls, the besiegers hurled great stones 
into the town and castle. So after dinner Sir Walter said 
"he had a fancy to destroy this great engine, if any had 
the will to go with him." Several of the guests took up 
the challenge, and putting on their armour, the party 
stole quietly out of one of the gates with a train of 300 
archers, and making a dash upon the artillerymen, cut 
down and scattered them, and smashed the catapult to 
pieces. They then galloped in among the enemy's lines 
and upset the tents — for frolic mingled largely with the 
fighting of those days — and running a tilt with all whom 
they met, rode back safe into the town. Then the 
Countess went down from the castle to welcome them 
"gaily" ("a grand' chere"), "kissing Manny and his 
companions one after the other two or three times, like a 
valiant dame." 

And now Charles and his allies, finding it hopeless to 
persist, drew off from the siege of Hennebon and invested 
Auray which they reduced by famine. Vannes was their 
next trophy, and there the French Marshal Lewis of 



98 Edward the Third. a.d. 

Spain, who was far more of a sea captain than a general, 
embarked his troops, and sailed away for Quimperle in 
"Bretagne Bretonnante," or western Brittany, where 
landing he ravaged the country and laded his ships with 
spoil. Sir W. Manny pursued by sea and land, attacked 
the marauders, forced them to disgorge their plunder, and 
chased them away in their ships, Lewis himself narrowly 
escaping capture. Robert of Artois was now on his way 
with an English fleet to Brittany. Lewis of Spain inter- 
_ _ . . cepted it near Guernsey, and a doubtful en- 

Indecisive 

sea fight of gagement took place, which was broken off 

by the coming of the night, during which a 
storm arose and scattered the fleets ; but the English man- 
aged ere long to reach the Breton shore, and joined the 
Countess and Sir Walter in the recapture of Vannes. 
Within a few days, however, the French again laid siege 
to Vannes, and the ill-starred D'Artois received a wound 
which obliged him to abandon the campaign and retire to 
England, where he shortly afterwards ended his life. 

King Edward himself followed close upon 
Edward D'Artois with another invading force from 

person "* England, and dividing his army into three 

detachments, laid siege at once to Rennes, 
Vannes, and Nantes ; but hearing that the Duke of Nor- 
mandy was advancing to reinforce Charles of Blois, he 
concentrated and entrenched his forces under the walls 
of Vannes. All through the worst of a very severe win- 
ter, with soldiers mutinying, horses dying, and supplies 
running short, the two armies lay encamped within sight 

of one another; till at length, in January, 
Truce of two cardinals arrived from Clement VI., 

Maiestroit. who haci succee d e( i to the Papal throne, to 

endeavour to bring about a peace. A truce was agreed 
upon at Maiestroit, to last till Michaelmas. The Scots, 



1343- Parliament 0/134$. 99 

the Flemings, the Hainaulters, and the two contending 
parties in Brittany were to be included in the truce, and 
the elder De Montfort was to be set at liberty. 

The French King evaded the stipulation for the re- 
lease of De Montfort ; but two years later the prisoner 
managed to escape in disguise from the Louvre ; visited 
and did homage to Edward in England, and rejoined 
his wife at Hennebon ; where, however, he soon after- 
wards died, appointing the English King guardian of the 
rights of his son. Thus ended Edward's third inglorious 
and unprofitable French campaign. The convention of 
Malestroit was a truce only, not a peace : whether it 
should become such or not, was a question which Edward 
thought it politic to reserve for the decision of his Parlia- 
ment. 

That body assembled at Westminster in the spring of 
1343. Though we may infer from a notice in the Par- 
liamentary Rolls (ii. 127) that the division of Parliament 
into two Houses, "Lords and Commons," took place two 
years earlier, this session is remarkable as the first occa- 
sion in which that separation is clearly apparent. It 
formed no part of the original plan of Edward I., accord- 
ing to which clergy, barons, knights and burgesses, all 
deliberated, voted, and made grants independently. 
The "Grauntz" — that is, the prelates and barons, the 
latter about forty in number — held their sit- 
ting in the White Chamber, subsequently Parliament 
called the Court of Requests ; the knights of 
the shires, and the burgesses representing the towns, sat 
together in the Painted Chamber. The members of the 
Commons at this time numbered about 250, and were 
paid for their attendance in Parliament by a tax levied 
on the places which they represented, the knights receiv- 
ing four shillings a day, and the burgesses two shillings ; 



ioo Edward the Third. a.d. 

for payment to the members of the Commons' Chamber 
was then the rule, and was not, in fact, abolished till the 
eighteenth century. On this occasion the two M Houses" 
each gave a separate opinion in favour of peace, but 
undertook to support the King loyally and liberally in 
maintaining his quarrel, if peace could not be had on fair 
terms. It was agreed, however, that commissioners to 
arrange the conditions of peace should lay their proposals 
before the Pope under protest that they were submitted to 
him not as a dictator or judge, but as a common friend 
(extrajudicialiter et amicabiliter). This precaution was 
_ , . owinsr to the jealousy felt at this time in 

Relations ° J J 

with the England of the Pope s aggressive and en- 

croaching policy. During the whole of 
Edward III.'s reign the attitude of the nation at large, 
and of the prelates no less than of the temporal Peers, 
was that of watchful and determined resistance to Papal 
interference. This Westminster Parliament petitioned 
for the redress of a grievance to which Englishmen were 
constantly obliged to submit — namely, the occupation 
by non-resident foreigners — "provisors," as they were 
called — of livings and other ecclesiastical offices in Eng- 
land under the nomination and appointment of the 
Pope. Edward, who had before complained personally 
to his Holiness of these abuses, now wrote still more 
urgently; but as letters containing secret orders from 
Avignon to the clergy were still constantly coming into 
England, he found it necessary to issue mandates a 
few months later, forbidding any person to carry into 
England Bulls or documents from the Pope appointing 
to any ecclesiastical office beneath the dignity of a 
bishop. The disputes about these provisors were car- 
ried on all through Edward's reign, the first beginnings 
of the storm which, after gathering strength for two 



1344- Round Table at Windsor. 101 

centuries, at length broke out, with only too destructive 
violence, in the great Reformation. As for the peace 
negotiations, however, Edward wrote courteously to Cle- 
ment VI., agreeing to the prolongation of the truce ; 
and, difficult as it is to believe that he had any definite 
policy at all, it may be safely assumed that in his appar- 
ent readiness to negotiate, he wished either to put the 
French King in the wrong or to gain time for maturing 
his warlike preparations. Whatever may have been his 
ultimate designs upon the French crown, it appears cer- 
tain that he had no intention of yielding up a tittle of his 
claim to the absolute sovereignty of Guienne, whereas 
Philip had determined that Edward should never hold a 
foot of land in France except as a vassal. No wonder, 
therefore, that the ambassadors who met before the Pope 
failed to arrive at any mutual agreement ; no wonder that 
the English King, on the return of his commissioners, in 
complete uncertainty as to the future, waiting for the 
leading of circumstances, and constantly receiving in- 
. telligence of new aggressions in Guienne and threats of 
the invasion of England — should have continued to pre- 
pare for war by strengthening the defences of the coun- 
try, and by acquiring fresh alliances and fresh supplies of 
arms, ships, and men, while all the time he kept alive 
the formal negotiations for peace. In this way a year 
and a half was passed, and it was not till the Midsummer 
of 1345 that Edward struck the first blow. 

In this interval, in the year 1343, Edward's friend, the 
Earl of Salisbury, was crowned King of the 
Isle of Man, and "Edward of Woodstock" * D - T 344- 

1 Round 

created Prince of Wales. On the first day Table at 

r 1 t r 11 T ^- -r- 1 1 Windsor. 

of the January following, King Edward pro- 
claimed a Round Table, or great international tournament 
in honour of King Arthur, at Windsor and shortly after- 



102 Edward the Third. a.d. 

wards gave orders for the erection of a " house called 
the Round Table M — the present Round Tower of Windsor 
Castle — in which the knights attending the jousts should 
banquet. He issued authority to the architect and the 
head bricklayer to impress as many artizans as they 
might require in certain counties to carry out the work, 
which cost him ^iooa week, a large sum for those days ; 
but Edward seems to have been now in no want of 
money, for about the same time we find a commission 
sent to Germany once more to redeem the " great crown " 
from out of pawn. Among other preparations for war 
he resorted to the very doubtful expedient of forbidding 
bullion and the precious metals in any shape, from being 
carried out of the country. He also prohibited the ex- 
port of horses above the value of sixty shillings ; required 
all persons having forty acres of land to take up the 
military order of knighthood, and issued orders that no 
knight or man-at-arms should leave the country without 
his permission. 

Of the friendship of the Flemings he had every reason 
to feel secure, but on the eve of the great effort which he 
was about to make he thought it prudent to 
confer with Van Arteveldt and the burgo- 
masters, and ascertain their feelings towards him. Van 
Arteveldt had ruled his countrymen with a wisdom and 
sagacity which even his detractors admit, for nine years, 
but just three months before the visit of Edward a trade 
crisis had occurred, which ended in a bloody struggle at 
Ghent, in which 500 operatives were killed. The course 
which the Ruwaert took on this occasion in supporting 
the small towns in their resistance to the monopoly of 
the cities, had drawn upon him the enmity of the master 
manufacturers of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres ; while he 
was at the same time at issue with the party whose cause 



1345- Murder of Van Arteveldt. 103 

he had espoused, because they were ready to throw them- 
selves into the arms of the Count of Flanders. At this 
juncture Edward arrived. The conference took place in 
the harbour of Sluys, where Edward received the bur- 
gomasters on board "his great ship 'Katherine.' " He 
endeavoured to persuade them formally to depose their 
Count and to receive the Prince of Wales as Duke of 
Flanders. Van Arteveldt embraced this project warmly, 
and during the month which the burgomasters took to 
lay the question before the general assembly of the people 
at Ghent he visited the towns of Ypres and Bruges, and 
spared no exertions to induce the citizens to accede to 
King Edward's proposal. Meanwhile his enemies at 
Ghent, encouraged, as it is said, by the Duke of Brabant, 
who had rejected Edward's overtures, and wished to ally 
himself with the Count of Flanders instead, incited the 
populace against their Ruwaert ; who, on his return to 
the capital, was basely and ungratefully murdered in his 
own city, by the people whom he had ruled so well and 
wisely. However, much or little as Edward may have 
felt the assassination of his friend, that event 

Von Art6- 

in no way interfered with his policy. He V eidt mur~ 
suffered his wrath to be appeased by a rep- d ere d. 
resentation from the citizens of Ypres and Bruges that 
they had no share in the murder, which indeed they 
deeply regretted. The project of making the Prince 
of Wales Duke of Flanders is no more heard of; 
but Edward published an account of his visit, in which, 
without any allusion to Van Arteveldt' s death, he re- 
ports that " the Flemings were never firmer in fidelity 
to us." 

A year elapsed after this conference before the King 
took the field in person ; but already, early in the sum- 
mer of 1345, the Earl of Derby, son and heir of the Earl 



104 Edward the Third. a.d. 

of Lancaster, had sailed for Guienne. For the Gas- 
con barons who attended the Round Table 
Derby in had represented to the King that his " good 

Gmenne. country of Guienne and his good friends and 

his good city of Bordeaux were badly comforted and sup- 
ported," and besought him to send over a captain with an 
army capable of making head against the aggressions of 
the French, which, even in times of nominal truce, had 
never wholly ceased. Edward had thus a just excuse for 
sending a strong force into the South of France at the 
same time that he was organizing a second invasion of 
that country by way of Brittany, where he had a friend in 
the Countess of Montfort, whose still remaining territory 
afforded him a safe landing place and basis 
Earl of f operations on the west. The Earl of 

Northamp- r 

ton in Brit- Northampton sailed at the head of this expe- 
dition about the same time that the Earl of 
Derby took the command in Guienne ; but with the ex- 
ception of a few unimportant captures he accomplished 
nothing worthy of record, till he was recalled to join the 
third army of invasion, commanded by the King in 
person. 

The movements of the Earl of Derby were more im- 
portant. He landed at Bayonne with some 3,000 men, 
and marched to Bordeaux, where, having been reinforced 
by the troops of the province, he took the field against 
the French, who had entrenched themselves strongly at 
Bergerac on the Dordogne. At the suggestion of Sir 
Walter Manny, who accompanied this expedition, he 
made a sudden and desperate attack on the town and 
captured it almost by surprise. He then overran Perigord 
and the Agenois, scarcely encountering any serious oppo- 
sition, and safely withdrew with his spoils into Bordeaux. 
Meanwhile the French had not been inactive. They did 



1345* ■S&sp* of Angouleme, 105 

not indeed venture to meet the English in the open field, 
but they had put the country still spared by the invaders 
into a state of defence. Philip had entrusted the arming 
of Languedoc to his son, the Duke of Normandy, who 
succeeded so well in rousing the nobility and levying 
troops, that when the French King visited his son's head- 
quarters at Angouleme in September, he found a large 
army massed there, observing the motions of the English 
from a safe distance, till the Earl of Derby withdrew into 
winter quarters. But as soon as they heard that he was 
laid up in Bordeaux, the French, notwithstanding the 
lateness of the season, took the field in great force, and 
laid siege to Auberoche. The garrison, who 
were unprepared for defending the place Auberoche. 
against an attack conducted by an army of A- D - I345 ' 
10,000 men, armed with the most formidable engines of 
war, sent off a page to the Earl of Derby for help. The 
besiegers caught the poor boy and hurled him back from 
one of their catapults over the walls into the town. News 
did reach the Earl of the distress of the garrison, but it 
reached him so late that there was no time to collect 
such a body of troops as might enable him to raise the 
siege. He started, however, with Sir Walter Manny at 
the head of 300 lances and 600 archers, and, undismayed 
by the desperate odds against him, advanced under cover 
of a wood upon the enemy's camp, stole upon them while 
at supper, and dealt such terrible slaughter among the 
startled and unarmed host of the besiegers, that all who 
could were glad to save themselves by flight. After this 
daring and successful action the Earl overran the country, 
taking Angouleme and many other strong fortresses with- 
out experiencing a reverse, and again retired into winter 
quarters. 

In the spring, when the armies took the field anew, 



106 Edward the T/u'rd. a.d. 

the Duke of Normandy found himself at the head of 
100,000 men at Toulouse, and this time departing from 
his policy of inaction, laid siege to the fortresses which 
had lately been taken by the Earl of Derby. Angouleme 
was garrisoned by the English under John of Norwich, 
who, seeing that defence was hopeless and surrender 
inevitable, proposed to the Duke that, as the following 
day was the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, a 
truce should be observed by both armies, neither molest- 
ing the other for four-and-twenty hours. The duke 
agreed: and early on that "Candlemas" morning he 
called together his men, mounted them on strong horses, 
"trussed up bag and baggage," and marched out of the 
city in good order into the midst of the French camp. 
The Frenchmen flew to arms, but Sir John pleaded the 
Duke's pledged word that neither army should molest 
the other for that day. The Duke saw that he had been 
overreached, but allowed them to depart in safety ; and 
indeed it was in reliance on his well-known honor that 
Sir John of Norwich made this venture, for the Duke had 
already gained the character for scrupulous veracity 
which he maintained so well when King of France ; and 
to him was attributed the golden sentence that " if faith 
and truth were banished from among the rest of man- 
kind, they ought to be found in the mouths of kings and 
princes. " Upon the withdrawal of John of Norwich, 
Angouleme surrendered to the Duke, who then, about the 
beginning of May, sat down to the famous siege of Aig' 
uillon, which will hereafter be described. 



1345* Edward invades France in Person. 107 



SECOND DECADE.— A. D. 1337-1347. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CAMPAIGNS OF CRECI AND NEVILLE'S CROSS, 
AND THE SIEGE OF CALAIS. 

But now the time had come at which Edward III. was to 
make in person his long-projected descent upon France. 

He took with him his son and heir, Edward of Wood- 
stock, "late of Queen's College in the University of Ox- 
ford." For the prince was one of the first students of 
that since famous institution, which had been founded in 
1340, (by the confessor of "Queen" Philippa,) and tra- 
dition still points out the vaulted chamber in which he 
slept as a boy undergraduate before he exchanged the 
gown for the sword. 

The King's original intention was to join the Earl of 
Derby in Gascony ; but, apparently at the last moment, 
he was persuaded by Geoffrey d'Harcourt, a 
French refugee who had taken the place of Edward 

° r invades 

D'Artois in Edward's counsels, to steer for France in 

Normandy instead. He landed the follow- 
ing day at Sainte Vaste, hard by Cape la Hogue. This 
sudden change of destination is enough to show what the 
subsequent incidents of the war abundantly proved, that 
Edward's plans, if he had any, for the campaign, were at 
this time vague and unsettled in the extreme, and that 
the splendid success which ultimately crowned it was 
due, not so much to far-seeing combinations on the part 
of the general as to his own good fortune, and to the in- 
domitable valour of the soldiers whom he led. 



108 Edward the Third. a.d. 

The first happy accident of the campaign was the un- 
accountable absence of all preparation on the part of the 
French for a descent upon Normandy. The great army 
of Philip was massed in the South of France, too far dis- 
tant to be recalled in time to arrest the advance of 
Edward before he had arrived within sight of Paris. 
With a force of 30,000 men he marched at his ease through 
an open and undefended country, ravaging and pillaging 
far and wide, burning the ships in the harbours, and col- 
lecting a vast quantity of plunder, which he sent home 
with his returning fleet to England. At Caen, a city of 
20,000 inhabitants, and described in a contemporary let- 
ter, as "larger than any town in England except London," 
he met with some resistance. Upon storming the place 
he found in the archives a secret treaty which the Nor- 
mans had themselves proposed, and entered 
Capture of mt0 w - ix h t h e F re nch, for the invasion of 

Caen. 

England at their own cost, in 1339, a dis- 
covery which so enraged him that he gave up the town 
to plunder. He would have abandoned the inhabitants 
to be massacred had not Geoffrey d'Harcourt withheld 
him, saying, "Dear Sire, restrain your courage, and be 
satisfied with what you have done ; you have yet a long 
journey before you get to Calais." It is worth while to 
place this remark on record, for though resting on some- 

what doubtful authority, it points to the fact 
object of the that the idea of getting possession of the 
expe 1 on great fortress and "pirate haven" (p. 130-1) 
of Calais, so important to the King of England whose 
revenues depended mainly upon trade, was what, at any 
rate from this time forward, determined the course of the 
campaign. Edward would in all probability have marched 
directly for Calais, to effect a junction with his Flemish 
allies — who to the number of 40,000 men, had entered the 



i3-{6- Edward's efforts to Cross the Seine. 109 

French territory on the north — had he not found it impos- 
sible to cross the Seine without first making a long detour 
to the eastward, the consequences of which will presently 
be seen. 

He remained three days at Caen, and then continued 
his advance towards the Seine, taking black mail of the 
people of Louviers, " one of the towns of Normandy 
where they made the greatest plenty of drapery, and 
which was large, rich, and trading ;" and at length reached 
the river at Rouen, where he reckoned on 
being able to cross it by the great bridge. ^roTts^ 55 

But the French having no army to oppose cross the 

to Edward on his first arrival in the open 
field, had destroyed every bridge standing across the 
Seine between Rouen and Paris, with the intention of con- 
fining to the left or southern bank the English army, who 
were eager to march northwards and leave the river behind 
them. At this moment Edward's situation was indeed 
beginning to become most critical. Retreat by the way 
he came was impossible, for the country had been ex- 
hausted and the inhabitants exasperated by the ravages 
of his army ; and, should he succeed in crossing the 
Seine higher up, King Philip was watching the invader's 
movements with a host already twice as numerous as his 
own, to cut him off on his way towards Calais and the sea. 
For when it became evident that the steps which the 
French themselves had taken, in demolishing 
the bridges, would inevitably bring the Eng- t i ons G f the 
lish close up to the gates of Paris, the alarm French. 
became so great that thousands of volunteers had flocked 
to St. Denys, where Philip had taken up his quarters. 
The English host meantime advanced from Rouen, along 
the southern bank of the river, towards Paris, burning 
and destroying all the towns on their route, till they 



no Edward the Third. a.d. 

reached Poissy, within five leagues of the city. Here 
again they found the bridge broken down, but Edward 
was far too anxious for the extrication of his army from a 
position becoming hourly more hazardous to entertain the 
idea of marching upon the capital. Halting his main 
body at Poissy, he gave orders to repair the bridge with 
all speed, and sent out light troops to attack the faubourgs 
of Paris, reducing St. Germain, St. Cloud, and Bourg la 
Reine to ashes. The consternation in Paris was extreme, 
but during the five days taken up by the rebuilding of the 
bridge, King Edward abode in the Abbey of Poissy-les- 
Dames, and kept the feast of "our Lady of Mid- August" 
with great solemnity, sitting at table in robes of scarlet 
bordered with ermine. But the main body of Philip's 
army was a few miles off, at St. Denys, already a mighty 
host, and daily swelled by fresh accessions of strength. 
Thither came Count Louis of Flanders, Sir John of Hain- 
ault (who had now deserted from the English cause), the 
Duke of Lorraine, the King of Bohemia, and his son 
Charles, King of the Romans, ere long to be the Em- 
peror. For, happily for King Philip, the quarrel between 
the Pope and the Emperor Lewis had just broken out 
afresh, and the Pope, after loading him with insults, 
curses, and studied humiliations, which made him ridicu- 
lous in the eyes of the feudatories, had at last declared 
the Imperial throne vacant, and called on the Electors to 
nominate Charles of Bohemia Emperor in his stead. 
But Charles at this time got no further than the prelimi- 
nary step of being chosen King of the Romans. The 
Diet of Spires declared his election void, and when he 
presented himself at the gates of Aachen (Aix la Chapelle) 
to be crowned Emperor, according to custom, in that city, 
he found them closed against him. Having therefore no 
longer any footing in Germany, he volunteered to come 



1346. English Army crosses tJic Somme. 11 1 

to help King Philip, with 500 knights and nobles in his 
train. 

And now it almost seemed that the English army — 
still on the wrong side of the impassable Seine, and with 
the river Somme beyond it still to be crossed, before they 
could make good their retreat northwards — were about to 
fall an easy prey to their exasperated and exultant ene- 
mies ; who had the command of the country between 
these two natural barriers, and were thus able to choose 
their own time and place for a battle. But in the mean- 
while the repairs of the bridge at Poissy had been exe- 
cuted with an energy proportioned to the danger, and, as 
soon as it was declared passable, Edward broke up his 
camp, and crossing unmolested on the 16th of August 
found himself safe, so far, on the northern bank of the 
Seine. Scarcely had his vanguard, under Geoffrey D'Har- 
court, passed the bridge than they found themselves face 
to face with a large contingent of armed men from 
Amiens, "marching horse and foot and in grand array," 
to join the French army at St. Denys. They assailed 
each other with mutual fury, but the English was victori- 
ous, and it is said that 1,200 of the enemy were slain in 
this chance encounter. 

Arrived safely at Pontoise, Edward received a mes- 
sage from the King of France, challenging him to a 
pitched battle in the plain of Vaugirard. He replied 
that the King of England would always be found ready, 
but that, being in his own dominions, he would allow 
no one to dictate to him the time and place of battle. 

He then marched northward, pillaging and 
burning all before him ; but it is remarkable, marches 

and highly characteristic of the times, that somme. 6 

amidst all this cruelty and destruction the 
property of ecclesiastics was religiously spared. The 



ii2 Edward the Third. a.d. 

abbey of Beauvais was indeed destroyed, but King 
Edward straightway seized the men who had set it on 
fire, and hanged twenty of them on the spot. At 
Airaines he halted for three days, during which Geof- 
frey d'Harcourt and Lord Warwick, with 3,000 men, 
were employed searching the banks of the Somme for a 
place at which the army might cross, either by bridge or 
ford. But the French had been beforehand with them, 
and they had to return to Edward with the news that, as 
far as they could ascertain, the river which lay athwart 
the line of their retreat northwards was impassable. 

Breaking up his camp with such haste, that when the 
French followed two hours after, they found "meat on 
the spits, pasties in the ovens, and tables ready spread," 
the English King pushed on to Oisemont, near the town 
of Abbeville which had in it a still unbroken bridge 
across the river, but was strongly garrisoned by the 
enemy. Here, however, fortune again favoured him. A 
" varlet" named Gobin Agace, tempted by the promise 
of a rich reward, gave information of a tidal ford between 
Abbeville and the sea where the river, he said, had at 
the ebb a depth of water barely up to the knees, and a 
bottom strong and hard, of white stone, whence it went 
by the name of Blanche Tache. 

It is not to be supposed that the French commanders 
v/ere unacquainted with the existence of this ford ; but 
Philip thought that he had effectually pro- 
army crosses vided against the possibility of the English 
effecting a passage there, by sending Gode- 
mar du Fay with 12,000 men to occupy the northern ap- 
proach to the landing-place. However, the English army 
and this French detachment were in very different posi- 
tions : the latter were standing on the defensive ; the 
former, with a fierce enemy in overwhelming force press- 



1346. Position of English Army at Creci. 113 

ing close upon their rear, had but this one chance for 
liberty and life — to fight their way across the river be- 
tween two tides. They waited and waited the apparently 
interminable hours that the tide was slowly ebbing, in 
doubt whether the river would become fordable or the 
French vanguard be upon them, first. At length, how- 
ever, the water fell low enough for fording, and the Eng- 
lish men-at-arms plunged into the stream in the face of a 
shower of bolts from the crossbow-men on the further 
bank. But the Genoese marksmen were no match for 
the long-bow archers, and were soon driven from their 
ground by volleys of " broad-cloth " English arrows; 
while the main body of King Edward's lances advanced 
under their cover, and, encountering the French cavalry 
in the middle of the stream, drove them back, some 
into deep water and some on the banks, and utterly 
routed them with a slaughter of 2,000 men. Hardly had 
the English rearguard gained the northern bank, when 
the French army appeared on that which they had left. 
They even seized a few stragglers belonging to the re- 
treating host, who had not kept pace with the rest. But 
the flood tide was mounting fast, and pursuit was impos- 
sible ; so the rescued and the baffled army stood exchang- 
ing gestures of defiance across the river, till Philip turned 
his horse and led back his forces to Abbeville. He 
stayed there one day, and then advanced with an army 
daily swelling by reinforcements in further pursuit of his 
retreating foe. 

But now King Edward, having crossed the Somme, 
stood in Ponthieu, his own lawful inheritance through 
the second wife of his grandfather, King 

-r. , , , . « Edward 

Edward I., and was determined to retreat no resolves to 
further, but to stand at bay and fight. 

Every day had been bringing him nearer to a junction 



1 1 4 Edward the Third. a. d. 

with his allies, but we hear nothing more of the 40,000 
Flemings who had crossed the frontier on the north three 
weeks before ; still, notwithstanding the enormous dis- 
parity of force, Edward determined to hazard all upon 
the issue of a battle. Philip's delay of a day at Abbeville 
enabled the English King to rest and refresh his men, 
and deliberately choose an advantageous spot on which 
to receive the attack of the enemy. He selected a rising 
ground east of the wood, and south of the 
Battle of village, of Creci, between the Maie on the 

Creci. & ' 

right and Wadicourt on the left. In the 
evening before the battle, having first taken the utmost 
care for the comfort of his soldiers during the night, he 
entertained his chief captains at a great banquet in his 
tent in the wood ; and on their departure, entered his 
oratory, and, doubtless devoutly, prayed — more devoutly 
than for safety or for life itself — that God would "pre- 
serve his honour on the morrow." At daybreak on an 
ever-memorable Saturday August 26, 1346, the King 
and the Prince of Wales, who was then in his fifteenth 
year, " heard mass and partook of the Sacrament, and 
the greater part of the army confessed themselves and 
received absolution." 

The plan of the engagement was that the army should 
be divided into three "battles." The King was to com- 
mand the reserve, consisting of 700 men-at-arms and 
2,000 archers, " as a forlorn," and take up his position on 
a hill in the rear, at a spot where a windmill then stood, 
part of whose massive tower is still to be seen overlook- 
ing the plains. The second battalion, commanded by 
the Earls of Arundel and Northampton, consisted of 500 
men-at-arms and 1,200 bowmen, and were posted on the 
left of the line, with the archers massed in front of them, 
and protected on their flank by the river Maie and a deep 



1346. Battle of Creci. 115 

artificial ditch. The third detachment, consisting of 800 
men-at-arms, 2,000 archers, and 1,000 Welshmen, under 
the Prince of Wales, the Earl of Warwick, and Sir John 
of Chandos, occupied the right ; they stood a little in ad- 
vance of the rest, nearly at the bottom of the slope, 
with the archers in front arranged 40 deep and 200 in 
breadth in the form of a " herse" or harrow. One his- 
torian tells us (see page 128) that in the intervals between 
these bodies were planted sundry very small bombards 
"which, with fire, and a noise like God's thunder, threw 
little balls of iron to frighten the horses." It was deter- 
mined that the battle should be fought by the English 
knights and men-at-arms, as well as the infantry, on foot, 
and accordingly the horses were sent, with the baggage- 
waggons, to a "park" or entrenched enclosure, under the 
shelter of the wood, in the rear. 

The skill of a general in those days was shown chiefly 
in the choice of the ground and the disposition of his 
forces. The battles were for the most part an aggregate 
of single hand-to-hand combats, in which victory de- 
pended more on the pluck and bottom of the men them- 
selves than on the skilful handling of troops, and the 
masterly strategical combinations in which such captains 
as Napoleon delighted. The English King, or his mar- 
shals, did their work well before the battle of Creci. 

When the dispositions had been made with all possible 
forethought and care, and " each lord and captain stood 
under his banner and pennon " (the red dragon of Merlin 
floating over the W T elsh contingent) ; " the valorous 
young King, mounted on a lusty white hobby, with a 
white wand in his hand, rode between his two marshals 
from rank to rank, and from one battalion to another, 
encouraging every man that day to defend and maintain 
his right and honour." At daybreak he ordered his sol- 



n6 Edward the Third. A.D. 

diers to "eat at their ease and drink a cup, after which 
they sat down in their ranks and waited patiently for the 
French, with their long bows and helmets lying beside 
them on the warm grass." 

Philip passed the night at Abbeville, but as there was 
not accommodation in the town for his overgrown army, 
many of the soldiers had to pass the night in the fields, 
insufficiently provided with food. This was a bad prepa- 
ration for a march of some six leagues to battle the 
following morning. As the army advanced, wearied and 
dispirited, and already in disorder, some French knights 
whom Philip had sent forward to reconnoitre the enemy, 
brought him word that they had seen the able disposition 
and the steady front of the English army, and begged 
him to keep his people where they were for the rest of 
the day, till all might rest and those behind come up : 
"otherwise," they said, "your people will be tired and 
your enemies fresh ; and be sure they will wait for you." 
Two marshals were despatched, one to the front, the other 
to the rear, crying, " Halt, banners, in the name of God 
and St. Denys;" but the command was misunderstood 
or disregarded, and the rear jealously passed forward 
upon the van till all the lanes were choked with men, 
and discipline was at an end, — the French army became 
a disorganised multitude of wrangling soldiery, which 
King and captains endeavoured vainly by threats and 
persuasions to reduce to order, as they clashed their 
swords and shouted ' Kill, kill,' making sure of an easy 
prey." 

And now the English stood up and formed, and when 
Philip saw them " it stirred his blood, for he hated them," 
and flinging wide the oriflamme, or great scarlet banner 
of France, which like the " standard of the Prophet " 
among the Turks, was the sign of "no quarter," he 



1346. Defeat of Genoese Marksmen. 117 

furiously ordered his 15,000 crossbow-men to advance 
and dislodge them. But the Genoese marksmen were 
hungry, tired, and out of heart already, and just at this 
juncture came on a sudden tempest from the west, with 
thunder and lightning. The sky grew black ; ravens, 
thought to be birds of fatal omen, flew screaming over 
the French army ; the rain came down in torrents, 
drenching and chilling the weary soldiers and slackening 
the strings of their bows. It was, however, no more 
than a summer storm, and "at vespers " the sun shone 
brightly forth, and the crossbow -men were persuaded to 
advance. But their bowstrings were swelled and stretched, 
and the "level sun" shone full in their eyes, for they 
were advancing from the eastward. They set up a loud 
shout " to frighten the English,'' but the English never 
moved from their places ; again they shouted, and the 
third time "very loud and clear," and let fly their arrows. 
At the best they were no match for the English archers, 
who now drew their bows dry and safe from their cover- 
ings, and taking one step in advance, poured in their 
homedrawn shafts so thick and fast that the Genoese fell 
back discomfited, pierced through their necks and hands 
with the arrows, and cutting the strings of their bows in 
their rage and despair. The Genoese were supported by 
a splendidly accoutred body of horsemen, the flower of 
the French cavalry, who " formed a great hedge behind 
them," under the command of the Count of Alencon, 
King Philip's brother. When the crossbow-men fell 
back they threw the cavalry into confusion, and Philip 
crying out fiercely, " Slay me those runaway scoundrels ;" 
and his brother, "Down with them, and let me ride over 
their bellies against the English!" the angry horsemen 
too readily obeyed, and cut them down by hundreds as 
they fell back ; while the ceaseless storm of English ar- 



n8 Edward tli e Third. A.D. 

rows still poured in on this internecine struggle, and 
completed the slaughter of the unfortunate Genoese. 

And now Sir John of Hainault gave counsel to the 
French King that he should retreat, and fight it out 
another day ; but Philip was too much incensed to listen 
to any prudential advice, and spurred madly through the 
press of his own soldiers to join the Count of Alenc,on's 
division, which, almost uninjured under the protection of 
their armour, were fighting their way round through the 
disorganised masses of their own vanguard, to charge 
the Prince of Wales. At the same moment the Count 
of Flanders was struggling through to assail him on the 
other flank, and a strong body of German and Savoyard 
knights broke through the line of the archers in his front, 
and split the " herse" in two. The second battalion of 
the English, whose left flank was, as described, unas- 
sailable, immediately closed in on the right to support 
young Edward ; but the struggle was long and doubtful, 
and Arundel and Northampton sent to the King to tell 
him how the battle was going, and to beg him to rein- 
force the Prince. " Is my son killed ?" said the King. 
"No," replied the messenger. " Is he wounded?" "No, 
Sire." " Then," said he, " tell those that sent you that he 
shall have no help from me. Let the boy win his spurs." 
When his answer, long since passed into a proverb, was 
brought back the slackening fight again grew fierce and 
furious. The Prince now charged his assailants and 
drove them back again as they had come, between the 
two wings of the broken array of the English archers, 
and the Counts of Alencon and of Flanders and great 
numbers of the French knights and nobles fell. But 
young Edward himself was flung to the ground in the 
melee, and his life barely saved by Richard de Beau- 
mont, bearer of the great banner of Wales, which he 



1346. Prince E (heard wins his Spurs. 119 

flung over the fallen Prince, till rescued from his assail- 
ants. The Welshmen rushed under the bellies of the 
horses and stabbed them with their long knives, and 
slaughtered the heavily falling riders as they lay helpless 
in their armour on the ground, for no quarter was the 
order of the day on both sides. 

About this time the blind old King John of Bohemia, 
the son of one Emperor and the father of another, asked 
of a knight who stood by how the battle was going. He 
was told that the Genoese had given way, that they were 
slaughtered by the French cavalry, and that his son, the 
King of the Romans, was bearing himself bravely in the 
thickest of a doubtful fight. "Then," said he, "lords, 
you are my vassals, my friends, and my companions ; I 
pray you and beg you that you will lead me so far that I 
may strike one blow with my sword." So two knights 
came up, one on each side of him, and each knight took 
a rein of the King's bridle and fastened it to his own, 
and thus they rode into the battle. " The King struck 
one blow with his sword, even three, even four, and 
fought right valiantly." When on the following day 
they counted the slain, the King and his two knights were 
found stretched side by side in death, their bridles inter- 
laced, with the rest of his guards lying close around 
them. Philip, beside himself with rage and grief, forcing 
his way at length through the struggling masses, joined 
desperately in the assault in which his brother had already 
fallen. His horse was killed, and he himself twice 
wounded, but when the blood was stanched he re- 
mounted and returned into the melee. The battle was 
already lost. The sacred Oriflamme itself had been 
beaten down and barely rescued by a gallant French 
knight, who, while he kept assailants at bay with his 
sword, stripped the banner from the shaft with his dag- 



120 Edward the Third. a.d. 

ger, and rode away with it wound about his body. Sir 
John of Hainault meanwhile seized the bridle of the 
defeated King and carried him off almost by force, 
broken-hearted, from the battle-field. That night he lay 
hid in the castle of La Broye, and the next day found 
refuge within the walls of Amiens. 

The battle had begun "at vespers," and when Philip 
fled from Creci the autumn twilight was closing in, and 
though the battle raged far into the autumn night, no 
attempt was made to pursue the shattered remnants of 
the army. King Edward, ignorant of the completeness 
of his victory, ordered fires and torches to be kindled and 
kept burning', and forbad the men to quit their posts. 
His meeting with his son may easily be imagined. He 
clasped him in his arms before the whole army by the 
light of the blazing watchfires, and said, "Fair son, God 
give you good perseverance ; right royally have you be- 
haved to-day, and proved yourself worthy of a crown." 
Then the young Prince, — for filial respect was one of the 
first and best lessons of chivalry, — bowed reverently 
to the ground and "gave the honour to the King his 
father." 

The dawn of Sunday was obscured by a dense fog and 
a detachment of troops was sent forward to reconnoitre 
and find out whether the French were rallying. They 
came suddenly upon a large body of soldiers marching 
in ignorance of the event of Creci, to join the French 
army from Abbeville, whom they immediately attacked 
and routed with great slaughter. Another troop equally 
unprepared, under the Archbishop of Rouen and the 
Grand Prior of France, were massacred without resist- 
ance. Many stragglers too, who had passed the night in 
the hedges waiting for the daylight, were caught and 
slain ; so that it is said the carnage of the day after the 



1346. Siege of Calais. 121 

battle was greater than that of the battle itself, and the 
total number of the slain far exceeded that of the whole 
of the English army. When they had counted up the 
dead, and ascertained by their surcoats the names and 
rank of the fallen, the conquerors could hardly believe 
the greatness of their victory. The bodies of twelve 
sovereign princes and 1,300 knights were found amongst 
the slain. The story is told, but on very doubtful author- 
ity, that the Prince of Wales, in honour of the most gal- 
lant and illustrious of the victims, took from the helmet 
of the King of Bohemia its plume of ostrich feathers, and 
adopted as his own the royal motto " Ich dien," which 
his successors have ever since borne. 

No obstacle now lay between Edward and Calais, 
which we may assume to have been, at any rate since 
the sack of Caen, the chief object of the expedition; but 
he knew that before making it his own, he would have to 
encounter a vigorous and probably tedious resistance. 
So he determined, if the first assault failed, to take the 
city by blockade, and starve it out, "though he should 
have to stay before it a dozen years/' 

Accordingly he built a town of huts round Calais, 
which he called "Newtown the Bold," and laid it out 
with a market, regular streets and shops, and 
all the necessary accommodation for an caif?s° f 

army, and hither were carried in vast stores 
of victuals and other necessaries, obtained by ravaging 
the country round and by shipment from England. The 
French, however, kept a strong fleet at sea, and constantly 
harassed the English transports, so that Edward had to 
write home to require ships to be fitted out to protect them 
in their way across the Channel. To carry out these ob- 
jects effectually large sums of money were needed. The 
expenses of the army before Calais alone were enormous, 



122 Edward the Third. A.D. 

The King found himself obliged to apply to the nation 
for a subsidy, and accordingly sent two envoys to Eng- 
land, who gave a full account in a Parliament assembled 
for the purpose, of the King's progress, of the victory 
of Creci, and of the siege of Calais, not forgetting to 
mention the discovery at Caen of the " ordinance of 
Normandy " for the invasion of England "and the de- 
struction and annihilation of the English nation and 
language;" and prayed the King's faithful Parliament 
to grant him a sum of money to carry the expedi- 
tion to a glorious termination by the capture of Calais. 
The liberal subsidy of two-fifteenths was granted with no 
hesitation as to the amount ; but the faithful Commons, 
growing on each occasion of a supply more and more 
outspoken, took the opportunity of representing that their 
constitutional rights were invaded by the people "being 
compelled to find ' men-at-arms, hoblers, and archers ' 
without consent of the Commons, but only by the order 
of the 'Grauntz,'" or great men; and that the King 
"should keep his promise that the defence of the sea 
should be at the expense of the Crown." The former 
grievance was admitted, and an agreement made that 
the recent levies should not become a precedent ; but 
with respect to the latter they were told that the "old 
usage would be continued," and that "there was no bet- 
ter way of the King's defending the sea than that of his 
going abroad with his army for the defence of the land." 
While Edward was pushing on the siege of Calais, the 
_ fears which he had entertained on leaving: 

Invasion of ° 

England by home, for the safety of his own kingdom, 
began to be realized. Shakespeare makes 
Henry V. say : — 

For you shall read that my great grandfather 
Never went with his forces into France, 



1346. Scots invade England. 123 

But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom 
Came pouring like the tide into a breach. 

And now that, as they believed, " England was bare of 
fighting men," and that none but " cowardly clerks and 
mean mechanics " stood between them and a march to 
London, these restless and independent spirits deter- 
mined not to throw away a chance of doing mischief. 
Just one week before the battle of Creci, Prince Lionel, 
whom Edward had appointed guardian of the realm, 
issued orders for the levy of an army in the north to 
defend England against the " Scotch insurgents." For 
young King David Bruce, at the instigation of the 
French king, had marched into Cumberland at the head 
of 30,000 cavalry, nine-tenths of which force were 
mounted, as usual, on rough ponies, but not the less well 
adapted for the purposes of a successful raid into an 
enemy's country. They stormed the " Pyle of Liddel," 
slaughtered the garrison, and sacking the abbey of Lan- 
ercost, " advanced through the bishopric of Durham " as 
far as Bearpark, near Neville's Cross. Meanwhile, quite 
unknown to the Scots, the English army of eleven or 
twelve thousand men were encamped six miles off in the 
park of Bishop's Auckland. So complete was their 
ignorance of each other's neighbourhood that Sir William 
Douglas, the Knight of Liddesdale, going out in the even- 
ing to forage, found himself face to face with the whole 
English army, and lost 500 men fighting his way to his 
camp. Before he had reached it the English host had 
already drawn up in order of battle on an eminence near 
Neville's Cross, and there they were found _ , . 

t_ t^- -r^ Battle of 

by King David, who lost no time in attack- Neville's 

ing them. His army was in three divisions, 
one of them commanded by Robert the Steward, one by 
the Earl of Murray, and the centre by the King himself. 



124 Edward the Third. a.d. 

The battle, as usual, was begun on the English side by 
the archers, by whom great numbers of the Scottish 
knights and cavalry, entangled in the hedges, were un- 
horsed and slain before the brunt of the battle. The 
whole English army then advanced with a huge crucifix 
carried in its front surrounded by embroidered pennons 
and banners. The wing of the Scotch army under the 
Earl of Murray, already disordered by the archers, was 
now broken and routed by successive charges of the 
English cavalry, and their leader slain. The Steward's 
division offered a very feeble resistance. King David, 
however, with the centre, made a gallant fight of it for 
three hours, surrounded by a ring of his nobles, but was 
at length brought down by an arrow which struck him in 
the face. A Northumbrian knight, named Coupland, 
flung himself from his horse upon the prostrate youth, 
and, though two of his teeth were dashed out by a blow 
from the King's dagger, made him his prisoner and car- 
ried him off to his castle. 

The Scotch no longer resisted, and Robert the Stew- 
ard, without an effort to rescue the King from his cap- 
tors, collected the fugitives and marched them off the 
field. 

Many Scottish earls and knights were among the slain. 
The knight of Liddesdale was taken prisoner along with 
the king, and both were conducted with great respect to 
the Tower of London. Coupland at first refused to give 
up his captive, but is said to have yielded him at last, 
upon the promise of an adequate reward, to the express 
order of Queen Philippa, who, one would willingly be- 
lieve, if the statement rested on better authority, was 
present with the army on the occasion ; and emulated 
the example of the heroic Frenchwoman who shortly 
before had taken up the sword and wielded it so success- 



I347- Siege of Aiguillon, 125 

fully in her husband's cause. It is a certain and very- 
singular fact that, if the Queen was not present, there 
would seem to have been no commander in chief to 
whose orders the other generals owed obedience, upon 
the English side. We hear of the Queen immediately 
afterwards as sailing "to rejoin" the King with the 
army before Calais, but Jehan le Bel, and several of the 
later " recensions " of Froissart's often revised work, tell 
us that before the fight of Neville's Cross she retired to 
Newcastle. 

This was indeed an age of warlike heroines. While 
the siege of Calais was proceeding, the war in Brittany 
was carried on with vigour and ability by Jeanne of Pen- 
thievre ; whose husband, Charles of Blois, had been taken 
prisoner at Roche Derein in the spring of the year by 
Edward's Lieutenant in Brittany, and lodged in the 
Tower of London. 

It will be remembered that at the time Edward sailed 
from England and turned his course to La 
Hogue instead of Bordeaux, the formidable Amnion 

French army of the South having overrun 
the open country, sat down to beleaguer the great fortress 
of Aiguillon, which stood near the confluence of the Lot 
and the Garonne. 

This was the most famous siege and defence of the war. 
From April to the end of August a series of assaults were 
at intervals directed against the fortress with the whole 
force of the French army, on one occasion for six suc- 
cessive days each of the four detachments of the army 
taking its turn for three hours at a time. Catapults for 
battering down the walls, and bridges over the rivers to 
the tongue of land on which Aiguillon stands, were again 
and again erected by the besiegers and demolished by 
the besieged, and Sir Walter Manny and his brave gar- 



126 Edward the Third. a.d. 

rison had shown no sign of exhaustion, when news 
reached the Duke of Normandy that King Edward's in- 
vading army was within sight of the ramparts of Paris. 
Then at length the siege was raised ; and the Duke 
marched northward to reinforce his father ; while the Earl 
of Derby — now of Lancaster — refusing to treat with the 
French, took possession of many important towns, among 
others of the rich and populous city of Poitiers. He 
then embarked for England, and, recrossing the Channel, 
joined King Edward before Calais. Thither also re- 
paired the gallant defender of Aiguillon, Sir W. Manny ; 
_. „_ but he, relying on a safe conduct from the 

Sir W. * ° 

Manny in Duke of Normandy, rode with twenty com- 

panions through the heart of France. He 
was taken prisoner notwithstanding, and carried before 
the King, who basely threatened him with death. But 
the threat was not executed, for the Duke, true to his 
character, declared that he would never again bear arms 
against the English if his father incurred the deep dis- 
grace of such treachery. 

After the defeat of Creci Philip seems to have thought 
that the campaign was at an end, for he straightway dis- 
banded his own army and that which he had summoned 
from the South. 

He made great efforts at this time to detach the Flem- 
ings from the English alliance, and so far succeeded that 
the burgomasters of the great towns invited 
u» h gSn r ov S er the young Count, whose father had fallen at 
the Fiem- Creci, to come and rule over them, being 

ings, ' ° 

then in his fifteenth year. But Edward sent 
envoys, who pointed out to the Flemings the paramount 
importance of keeping on good terms with the people 
which command the supply of the produce on which 
their industry depended, and persuaded them to acqui- 



1347. Siege of Calais resumed, 127 

esce in a proposal for a marriage between the Count of 
Flanders and an English princess. Upon the Count's 
indignant refusal to be united to "the daughter of the 
man who had killed his father," (for his father fell at 
Creci) — his subjects seized him, and kept him under 
strict surveillance, till at last he gave them a promise that 
he would do as they required. King Edward and Queen 
Philippa were delighted at the prospect of this union, and 
went with great pomp to meet their future son-in-law at 
Bergues, where a day was appointed for the marriage. 
But the Count was only watching his opportunity to 
escape, and finding it one day when out hawking, he set 
spurs to his horse, and outstripping pursuit, got safe 
within the French border, and threw himself 
into the arms of Philip. Upon this the Flem- 
ings flung off all friendly relations with the French King, 
raised an army estimated at 100,000 men, and ravaged 
the country up to the walls of St. Omer. 

Of the three possible means of approaching Calais, 
that on the east, by Gravelines, was effectually barred by 
the Flemings against a relieving French 
army. A second approach led through a siege o 3 f 47 ' 
marshy tract on the northeast, impassable Calais 
except by a long and narrow causeway com- 
manded by the bridge of Nieulay, which was defended, 
and defensible against a host, — by a small body of Eng- 
lish under the Earl of Lancaster. The third means of 
access was by the Dunes extending along the sea to'the 
southwest ; this passage was fortified by deep ditches and 
a tower occupied by archers, and was commanded by 
the shot from the ships which were drawn up in shore, 
within range of the only possible line of march. Mean- 
while a fleet of cruisers swept the Channel and barred 
the admission of supplies to the citizens, who began to 



128 Edward the Third. A.i,. 

suffer from famine. The siege had been turned into a 
mere blockade, for, though the ordinary means of attack 
by throwing missiles into the city were not abandoned, 
they seem to have been employed more with a view of 
increasing the distress of the besieged than of destroying 
the defences of the town. Among others small cannon 
were used, which threw metal bullets, and arrows winged 
with slips of thin brass-plate, and fitted with leather 
collars to the bore of the gun. These cannon can hardly 
have been very formidable, for from three to four oz. was 
the average daily allowance of powder for each gun, and 

the whole stock of bullets for the siege was 
Cannon em- 20 ^ The properties of gunpowder had been 

known to Michael Schwartz in Germany and 
to Roger Bacon in England half a century before this 
date ; but it appears to have been first used for cannon 
at the beginning of the fourteenth century, in the Vene- 
tian wars. One historian only (Villani, see preface, page 
vi.), and he an Italian, wishing to account for the defeat 
of the Genoese, lays any stress upon the fact of the em- 
ployment of cannon at Creci. Doubtless it was little 
thought of at the time that these clumsy curiosities were 
the precursors of an artillery which was destined to rev- 
olutionise warfare; and to abolish the whole external 
system of chivalry, by bringing down the iron-clad 
knight to a level with the unarmoured plebeian soldier. 
At the commencement of the siege, the governor, John 
de Vienne, guessing Edward's intentions, had turned out 
of the gates everyone whom he judged useless for the 
defence. These, to the number of 1,700, drew near to 

the English camp uncertain w r hat fate awaited 

Non-com- ° \ . 

batants them ; but the King received them within 

the lines, gave them a plentiful meal, and 

passed them safe into the country with a present of two 



1347- Incidents of the Siege of Calais. 129 

pieces of silver each. Five hundred more of the useless 
mouths were expelled at a later period of the siege ; but 
chivalry had its fits of obduracy as well as tender-heart- 
edness, and this time the English lines were closed 
against them, and the whole multitude of men, women, 
and children were left to perish miserably of cold and 
hunger under the eyes of besiegers and besieged. The 
French ships made desperate exertions to throw provisions 
into the town, and at first with some success, but they 
were soon obliged to abandon the attempt. When the 
siege had lasted about .ten months, two small vessels 
were seen escaping out of the harbour ; one of them was 
caught, but, before surrendering, the captain was seen to 
throw something into the sea. It was found the next day 
on the sand at low-water — an axe with a letter tied to it 
from John de Vienne to the French King, stating that the 
garrison was in dreadful straits ; that they had already 
eaten the horses, dogs and cats, and that they could find 
nothing more to eat unless they ate each other. This 
letter was brought to Edward, who, when he had read it, 
sent it on to its destination ; and prayed King 
Philip that, if he valued his fair fame he marches to 
would send relief to his good people of Calais. Calais 
But at the time of receiving this melancholy 
despatch, Philip was already on his way at the head of an 
army, stated, with evident exaggeration, at 200,000 men 
to the relief of the place. They marched with all their 
banners flying, and the Oriflamme waving at their head, 
and took up a position at Wissant on the sea. From 
thence they advanced by way of the Dunes, and ap- 
peared on the Sandgatte Hills ; but though they got pos- 
session of the watch tower they were unable to approach 
within a mile of the English army. And now two car- 
dinals who had accompanied the French army, having 

K 



130 Edward the Third. a.d. 

endeavoured, and failed in their endeavours to bring 
about a peace, the French King took a step which, odd 
as it may seem to us, — at that time probably created little 
surprise, as it was in strict accordance with the usages of 
chivalry. On July 31 he sent a knight named Eustache 
de Ribeaumont, and two envoys, who were admitted by 

the bridge of Nieulay to audience of King 
lenges Edward, and delivered themselves thus : — 

"Sire, the King of France sends us before 
you, and would have you know that he is here, and 
posted on the Sandgatte Hill to fight you ; but he cannot 
see or find any way of getting at you, though he has a 
great desire to raise the siege of his good city of Calais : 
he would be very glad if your council and his could 
meet and determine upon a place to fight ; and this we 
are charged to request of you." The above are the words 
of the challenge as given by Froissart, according to whom 
the English King replied that he " had been there near 
a twelvemonth, was now on the point of taking Calais, 
and had not the smallest intention of complying with 
King Philip's request;" but a letter of Edward's own is 
extant in which he says that he accepted the challenge 
and appointed the day. However this may be, on the 
2d of August, to the amazement of all, the great French 
army suddenly broke up and were seen marching away 
southward, leaving their camp in flames and Calais to its 
fate. 

The following day the governor made a signal that 
he wished to treat, and when Sir Walter Manny drew 
_ _ near the wall to confer with him, offered to 

TheGover- . . ,..,„.,. 

nor offers to give up the city on condition that all withm 
capitu ate. we re permitted to depart unharmed. Sir 
Walter's orders were to demand a surrender at discre- 
tion, and this Sir John refused, saying that rather than 



1347- The six Burgesses, 131 

accept such terms they would sell their lives as dearly 
as they could. Edward, who bore an ancient grudge 
against the inhabitants for their piracies, and was now 
exasperated by their obstinate resistance, turned a deaf 
ear at first to Sir Walter's intercessions ; but at length 
consented that he would take the rest of the citizens to 
mercy, on condition that six of the chief burgesses should 
be given up to his vengeance, and, bare-headed and 
bare-footed, with halters round their necks, bring to him 
the keys of Calais. " On them," said Edward, savagely, 
" I will do my will." 

When these hard conditions were announced, a mourn- 
ful silence fell upon the famishing multitude, summoned 
by the ringing of the town bell, to hear their fate, in 
the marketplace, till Eustache St. Pierre, "the 
richest burgess in the city," stood forth and , The six 

J burgesses. 

said, " My friends, it would be a great pity 
and mischief to let such a people as this here die by 
famine or any other way, if a means can be found to 
save them, and it would be great alms and great grace 
in the sight of our Lord for anyone who could save them 
from such harm. I have myself so great hope of finding 
grace and pardon in the sight of our Lord, if I die to 
save this people, that I will be the first, and will yield 
myself willingly, in nothing but my shirt, with my head 
bare and the halter round my neck, to the mercy of the 
King of England." Upon this, we are told, " the women 
threw themselves at his feet weeping tenderly." Then 
another and another of the burgesses stood forth, five 
more, — saying " they were ready to go to death with 
him," and so, ere long, the number was made up, and 
the dismal procession took its way to the English camp. 
De Vienne, who "could not go afoot for his wounds," 
rode along side of them, and the people followed, weep- 



132 Edward the Third. a.d. 

ing bitterly, to the gate, which opened to deliver the six 
burgesses to Sir Walter Manny, and then closed again 
behind them. Ushered into the presence of the King, 
who was sitting under a crimson canopy of state, with 
his Queen at his side, and his court and staff standing 
round, they knelt down before him, and handing him 
the keys of the city, implored him to spare their lives. 
" Certes," says Jehan le Bel (see page v.), "there was 
then in that place neither lord nor knight that wept not 
for pity." But Edward, who "hated the men of Calais 
for the damage they had done him on the sea in times 
past," grinding his teeth with rage and silencing the ex- 
postulations of Sir Walter and the rest, ordered up the 
executioner. Then Queen Philippa, rising from the 
King's side, fell upon her knees, before the relentless 
conqueror, and entreated him with tears to spare the 
burghers for her sake, and for the love of our Lady's 
son. He appeared for a long time inexorable, but at 
last he yielded to her prayers, and desired them to be 
delivered up to the pleasure of the Queen, who took them 
to her pavilion, clothed and fed them, and set them free 
with a gift of money for their immediate necessities. 

There seems reason to believe that Edward, who t 
though easily roused to fury, was certainly not of a cruel 
or vindictive nature, never intended to stain his hands 
with the blood of these gallant citizens ; and that the 
whole scene in the camp of vengeance giving way to in- 
tercession had been- previously arranged. But even if 
this was so, it in no way detracts from the heroism of St. 
Pierre and his companions, who had completed their sac- 
rifice and tasted all the bitterness of death. The courtly 
contemporary chronicler, whose sympathies seldom ex- 
tend beyond the charmed circle of kings and knights 
and nobles, describes the above scenes in detail, with far 



1349- The Burgesses of Calais. 133 

more of pity than of admiration or enthusiasm ; but to us, 
who look back into the distance, and see things in their 
real proportions and their true historical light, this golden 
deed of the self-surrender of six Calais tradesmen far 
outshines in glory all the knightly exploits of the time. 



THIRD DECADE. 

A. D. 1347-1357. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE BLACK DEATH. 

The expenses of the siege of Calais were enormous, and 
led to another breach of faith on the part of the King. 
Notwithstanding his repeated promises to deal justly with 
his people, Prince Lionel, Regent of the kingdom in 
Edward's absence, was made to call a " Council " — in 
which the Commons were unrepresented — at West- 
minster, and his Council negotiated a " loan " (aprest) of 
20,000 sacks of wool from the merchants, making it at the 
same time "worth the merchants' while" to consent to 
the imposition of additional customs (a maletolt) on 
merchandise. In spite of an insistance on the right of 
self-taxation by the Parliament of 1349 and many subse- 
quent Parliaments, this arbitrary practice lingered on, 
and a final stop was not put to it till 1362, when the Com- 
mons were strong enough not only to make, but to 
enforce, their own conditions. 

In the Parliament of 1347 it was enacted that in every 
county six persons, two barons, two knights, and two 



134 Edward the Third. a.d. 

lawyers, should be appointed " Keepers of the Peace.'* 

In the statute 36 Edward III., 14 years later, 
the e peace. they are fi rst called by their present name 

of "Justices of the Peace," and ordered to 
hold their sessions, as they now do, four times every 
year. 

On taking possession of Calais Edward adopted a 

course which reminds us of the wholesale 
policy with deportations of ancient conquerors. He ex- 
Calls' t0 pelled all such of the inhabitants of the city 

as refused the oath of fealty to him ; and re- 
peopled Calais with Englishmen, whom he attracted 
thither by granting special immunities and privileges to 
the new citizens. He made it, some years later, the 
" staple," or general mart, for the sale of English pro- 
duce, ordaining that "no wools, skins, worsted, cheese, 
butter, lead, tin, coal, or grindstones should be exported 
from England except to Calais." Though this policy, so 
obviously, as it would seem, injurious to the commercial 
interests of England, was shortly afterwards reversed, 
the position of Calais made it continue to be a place of 
considerable opulence and prosperity under the English 
rule, for two hundred years and more. It was wrested 
from us in the reign of the first Queen Mary, who so 
deeply felt its loss that she used to say, " When I am 
dead and opened, ye shall find Calais lying in my 
heart." 

Although the cardinals had failed to bring about an 
accommodation between England and France before the 

capitulation of Calais, immediately after its 
Peace with fa.ll they renewed their offers of mediation, 

France. J 

in the name of Pope Clement VI., and now 
found both sovereigns willing to agree to an armistice for 
a few months which, at the repeated instances of the Holy 



1348. Great Position of Edward. 135 

See, and in spite of ceaseless efforts on the part of the 
King of France to goad his adversary into war, — was 
gradually prolonged for six years. 

Edward saw himself at the commencement of the 
third decade of his reign at the height of earthly pros- 
perity. His revenues were nearly doubled 
by the new impulse which he had given to Edward's 

J r ° prosperity. 

trade and commerce, and by his clever 
manipulation of the duties on produce and manufactures. 
A series of military successes had appreciably added to 
the territory, and enormously enhanced the prestige, of 
England on the Continent, and the victory of Neville's 
Cross had placed the Scotch King as a hostage in his 
hands. He found himself, still in the prime of life, the 
foremost power in Europe, the ruler of a loyal,. united, 
and prosperous people ; happy in his domestic relations, 
and with an heir renowned in arms though still a boy in 
years, whose character, ability, and dutifulness could give 
rise to no feelings but those of love and admiration in a 
father's heart. In the autumn of the year 1347, on the 
death of the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria, the Electors, 
unwilling that Charles of Bohemia, the 
Pope's nominee, should be forced upon riaf crown 
them, besought the English King to suffer n ^ red to 
himself to be named as successor; and in 
their eagerness for his acceptance of this offer, announced 
to Germany that he was elected to the Imperial throne. 
But Edward, who at this crisis took his Parliament into 
confidence as usual, was determined by their unfavour- 
able opinion to decline. 

The English people were full of exultation. " It 
seemed," says Walsingham, " as if a new sun had 
arisen, on account of the abundance of peace, of the 
plenty and the glory of victories ;" " there was no 



136 Edward the Third. a.d. 

woman who had not got garments, furs, featherbeds, 
and utensils from the spoils of Calais and 
Rejoicings in other foreign cities," and "then began the 
English maidens to glorify themselves in 
the dresses of the matrons of Celtic Gaul." There 
was such a passion for tournaments that they had 
to be forbidden to be held without the King's espe- 
cial leave ; but he himself appointed no less than 
nineteen in various places within six months, some 
of which lasted a fortnight or three weeks. It was 
like one long carnival, for at these tournaments, as 
well as at the " King's plays," and in- 
vagance of deed on all public occasions, knights, citi- 

fashion. -, •, ., 

zens, men and women, and even the 
clergy, vied with each other in grotesque absurdity of 
dress. The King himself set the example of foppery 
and extravagance. He appeared once in " a harness of 
white buckram inlaid with silver — namely, a tunic and 
shield, with the motto 

Hay, hay, the wythe swan ! 

By Goddes soul I am thy man — " 

and gave away, among other costumes, " five hoods of 
long white cloth, worked with blue men dancing," '* two 
white velvet harnesses worked with blue garters, and 
diapered throughout with wild men." Women, "not 
the best in the kingdom," appeared at the tournaments, 
" in divers and wonderful male apparel, with divided 
tunics, one part of one colour and one of another, with 
short caps and bands in the manner of cords wound 
round the head, or with mitres of enormous height dec- 
orated with streaming ribbons. . . . and carried in 
pouches across their bodies knives called daggers, and 
thus they proceeded on chosen coursers or other well- 



1348. Eccentiicities of Dress. 137 

groomed horses and so expended and devastated 

their goods, and vexed their bodies with scurrilous wan- 
tonness, that the rumours of the people sounded every- 
where, and thus they neither feared God nor blushed at 
the chaste voice of the people." 

The clergy let their hair hang down their shoulders 
curled and powdered, " thinking scorn of tonsure, which 
is a mark of the Kingdom of Heaven." They appar- 
elled themselves " more like soldiers than clerics, with an 
upper jump remarkably short and wide, long-hanging 
sleeves leaving the elbows uncovered, knives hanging 
at their sides to look like swords, shoes chequered with 
red and green exceedingly and variously pinked, orna- 
mented cruppers to their saddles, and baubles like horns 
hanging down from the horses' necks." These absurd 
details of "fashion" are curious and not without in- 
terest, as showing the peculiar form which the universal 
propensity of mankind for self-embellishment assumed 
in England towards the latter end of the Middle Ages. 
The " blue garters " which figure more than once among 
the King's accounts were doubtless intended 
for the famous Order founded at this time. ^ rd £ r of 

the Garter. 

The popular account of its origin is that in 
the midst of a palace assembly the Countess of Salisbury, 
whom Edward much admired, dropped her garter ; and 
this giving rise to broad jests among the courtiers, the 
King buckled it above his own knee, exclaiming, " Honi 
soit qui mal y pense !" (evil be to him who thinks harm 
of that) and then and there resolved to establish the 
Order of the Garter, The earliest authority for this story 
is Polydore Virgil, who lived and wrote about a century 
and a half later. It may reasonably be supposed that 
such an accident, though not the origin of the institution 
itself, should have suggested to the King a suitable badge 



138 Edward the Third. A.D. 

for the knightly Order which he had already resolved 
to create, in emulation of the Round Table of King 
Arthur. 

A greater contrast to all this can hardly be conceived 
than the state of France after the battle of 
C f°Fr il: n 0n Creci and the capture of Calais. The peo- 

ple of that country were reduced to such 
misery and subjected to such cruel violence and exaction 
that they had neither leisure nor spirit to bethink them- 
selves of the national calamities and humiliation. Organ- 
ized bands of free-booters, some in the name of England 
and some in the name of France, attacked and pillaged 
the towns and fortresses which held for the opposite party, 
and laid waste the country through which they passed on 
their march. King Philip openly avowed and rewarded 
one audacious brigand who had made himself con- 
spicuous by the injuries which he inflicted on the property 
of the English. There was, indeed, no declared war 
with France, for eight years after the surrender of Calais, 
but the French King and his partisans, some openly and 
some without his apparent sanction, lost no opportunity 
of harassing the Continental possessions of King Edward. 
Calais itself was all but lost within two years 
a, d. 1349. f i ts capture, by a treacherous attempt on 
recover the part of De Chargny, governor of St. 

Omer, to bribe an Italian to whom Edward 
had entrusted the command of the garrison. The trans- 
action coming to the knowledge of the English King, it 
was arranged that on December 31, 1349, the governor of 
Calais, on the payment of 20,000 crowns of gold, should 
admit De Chargny into the castle which completely com- 
manded the town. But at the time appointed King Ed- 
ward, the Prince of Wales and Sir Walter Manny, who 
had crossed the Channel secretly with 300 men-at-arms, 



1348. Attempt to Recover Calais, 139 

and 600 archers, were lying in wait ; and when the twelve 
knights and the 100 men-at-arms sent by De Chargny 
were admitted with the money, the drawbridge rose be- 
hind them and they found themselves at the mercy of the 
English, who rushed out from their ambush armed with 
hatchets and drawn swords and overpowered and secured 
them. Then Sir Walter Manny rode forth out of the 
town, with the King and the Prince of Wales as simple 
knights under his banner, to the bridge of Nieulay (page 
127), beyond which De Chargny had not ventured to trust 
himself. The bridge having been secured in their rear, the 
Frenchmen had to fight for their liberties and lives, and 
they fought for them well. The King himself engaged with 
Sir Eustache de Ribeaumont, the same whom Philip had 
sent along with De Chargny to challenge the English to 
a pitched battle during the siege ; but neither recognized 
the other till King Edward, "raging like a wild boar," 
and twice struck down, on his knee by blows upon his 
helmet, at length overcame his adversary and took him 
prisoner in fair fight. "All which,'* says Froissart " was 
right pleasant to see, for, fighting well and valiantly, 
Messire Eustache de Ribeaumont surpassed them all." 
But it was not till the King received his unwilling guests 
at supper, and the Prince of Wales waited on them, that 
the Frenchmen discovered that they had been fighting 
with King Edward, who they thought was far away in 
England. Then the King, rising from his seat, with a 
passing rebuke to De Chargny for his unknightly treachery 
took a chaplet of pearls from his own head, and placing it 
on De Ribeaumont's, begged him to wear it through the 
year for his sake, and to tell all fair ladies that it was 
given to the bravest of knights by England's King. He 
then dismissed them unconditionally. His vanity had 
been highly gratified at finding and overcoming a " foe- 



140 Edward % the Third. a.d. 

man worthy of his steel," and he could afford to be mag- 
nanimous. 

Those who tell the story of these times are tempted by 
the abundance of such materials to dwell too long upon 
wars and treaties, royal progresses and pageantries, and 
other incidents which, — though instructive and important 
in their way, and indispensable to a complete picture of 
the age, — are external to the real life of nations. 

In the interval between the capture of Calais and this 
attempt to recover it, a visitation occurred which turned all 
the gay prosperity of England into mourning, and brought 
the French nation to the very brink of ruin. 

The outbreak of the Plague, or the " Black Death," 
as it was then called, has been left comparatively in the 
background by contemporary historians ; 
The Black but it is undoubtedly the central fact of the 
reign of Edward III. and of the fourteenth 
century ; and, in the opinion of some writers, the most 
important economic fact in modern history. Among its 
consequences may be reckoned, as will be seen further 
on, an immense advance in the social condition of the 
working classes, owing to the scarcity of labour, and 
consequent increase in its value as a commodity ; — the 
substitution of what we should call tenant-farming for 
landlord occupation; — and a "strike" of fifty years' 
duration, which culminated in the rebellion of Wat 
Tyler in the following reign, and though then cruelly and 
treacherously put down, resulted at last in the emancipa- 
tion of the English peasantry. 

The local origin of the Plague is mysterious, and it has 

therefore, perhaps, been traced to Cathay, the land of 

mystery ; but it is an ascertained fact that 

all the most devastating epidemics which 

have visited Europe have had their cradle in the far 



I34&- The Black Death. 141 

East. Tidings of the Plague's ravages in Central Asia 
had reached England as far back as the year 1333; but 
the western peoples thought little of it as long as it was 
talked of only as one of the many scourges of imperfectly 
known and half-barbarous nations. 

Constantinople was then, as now, the great frontier 
city between European civilisation and the far East, and 
through it flowed one of the three principal tides of 
Oriental traffic. Thither in 1347 the destroyer came, 
along with the caravans laden with Asiatic produce, and 
followed the westward course of commerce 
by easy stages along the shores and islands and P ro " 

of the Mediterranean ; sometimes pausing, 
sometimes doubling back, but always gaining ground ; 
till it reached the utmost north-western boundary of 
Europe, not sparing Iceland, and even leaping over to 
Greenland, — where it probably extirpated the European 
colony (p. 51), — and returning by Norway and Sweden, 
through Russia, in 1351 . 

In Provence the chief cities were almost depopulated. 
At Avignon, where Pope Clement VI. held the most ex- 
travagant and dissolute court in Europe, three-fourths of 
the people died. The Pope shut himself up a close pris- 
oner in his palace-fortress, and kept huge fires burning 
night and day. 

In Cyprus, Sicily and Florence the Plague was felt 
with extraordinary severity. In the last place only it 
would seem that some efforts, though ineffectual, were 
made by the authorities to check the spread of the dis- 
ease, among the victims of which was Petrarch's "Laura." 
During its ravages in that city a number of ladies and 
gentlemen withdrew together from all communication 
with the outer world ; diverting themselves with music 
and dancing and other indoor entertainments, eating and 



142 Edward the Third. a.d. 

drinking of the best, and never listening to or thinking 
about anything which might check their good spirits or 
disturb their serenity. Stories by which they are sup- 
posed to have amused each other have been preserved, 
or invented, in the " Decameron " of Boccaccio, the 
effect of whose gay and festive pictures is heightened by 
contrast with the sombre background on which they are 
drawn. 

The Black Death which made the tour of Europe in 
1349-51 is undoubtedly the same disease as the Plague, 

now, or till quite lately, endemic on the 
tion as to shores of the Levant and in Egypt, having 

been, as it were, domesticated there by the 
lazy, filthy, and fatalistic habits of the people. Its spe- 
cific causes are as much unknown as its original seat. 
The opinion of the time and some modern authorities 
agree in connecting its appearance with contemporary 
physical phenomena of a very remarkable kind ; but it 
would seem as if these phenomena must have been of too 
limited and local a character to account for a pestilence 
which spread over a whole continent. Parching droughts, 
as it is said, were succeeded by convulsions of the earth 
and crackings of its surface, from which a fetid and 
poisonous vapour was projected into the atmosphere, 
the corruption of which was afterwards increased by 
malarious exhalations from swamps caused by incessant 
deluges of rain. To the panic-struck imagination of the 
people the Black Death seemed to be advancing to their 
destruction in the palpable form of a "thick stinking 
mist.*' That an alteration in the constitution of the air 
was a predisposing cause of the disease would seem 
probable from the fact that affections of the lungs and 
throat were among the earliest and most characteristic 
symptoms. But the immediate causes of an attack of 



1348. Physical Effects of the Plague. 143 

the Plague were limited apparently to contact with and 
inhaling of the breath of a plague-stricken person ; and 
there seems good reason to believe that a stringent appli- 
cation of the much-abused institution of quarantine 
would have effectually prevented its introduction into 
uninfected districts. The Black Death is ^ 

-r mi t • i'i Description 

specifically described as a disease "in which of its 
the blood is poisoned and the system seeks 
to relieve itself by suppuration of the glands; and in 
which the tissues becoming disorganized, the blood is in- 
filtrated into them, and dark blotches appear in the 
skin." 

In some rare and frightful cases of seizure the victim 
fell down and died without premonitory symptoms, but 
in the majority of instances the attack began with shiver- 
ings and bristling of the hair, succeeded by burning 
internal fever with a cold skin, and the rapid formation 
of boils, first in the axillae and the groin, and afterwards 
in the internal organs. The appearance of these boils 
was the most characteristic of all the symptoms of the 
Black Death, but the advance of dissolution was often so 
rapid as to outstrip these forerunners, which were indeed 
due to a strong effort of nature to expel the matter of the 
disease from the blood. 

The epidemic at Athens described by Thucydides and 
by Lucretius after him is wanting in some of the invari- 
able notes of the true Plague, such as the appearance of 
the boils and the liability to a second attack. There is, 
in fact, some reason to suspect that what those writers 
describe was no more than a violent outbreak of small- 
pox : not small-pox, however, as we know it now, but 
with many of the symptoms of scarlet fever. The ten- 
dency which Thucydides ascribes to the disease at Athens 
to extinguish and absorb into itself ordinary and casual 



144 Edward the Third. a.d. 

disorders is common to all great and devastating epi- 
demics. His description of the moral effects of the pesti- 
lence of his day tallies in a very remarkable manner with 
the accounts which have been handed down to us of the 
Plague of the fourteenth century. In both we read of the 
same recklessness, suspicion, cowardice, selfishness, and 
superstition, engendered by the fear of death. The Jews 
on the Continent — for that race had been expelled from 
England — were accused, as the Peloponnesians of old had 
been, of poisoning the wells, and numbers of them were 
massacred in consequence. The terror of the Plague was 
everywhere, inviting death ; men's vital powers were so 
depressed by anticipation that they were already half dead 
before they were attacked : the throat parched, the pulse 
quickened, by nervous anxiety were taken for the fatal 
symptoms of seizure. And next to the fear of death was 
that of previous desertion. Men and women feared to 
look in each other's faces, lest they should be betrayed by 
the " muddy glistening" of the eye ; or detected in feeling 
with feverish finger for "the little hard kernal no bigger 
than a pea, which moved with the touch under the skin 
of the armpit," the sure precursor, as it was thought, of 
doom inevitable, irremediable, inexorable, and irrespec- 
tive of persons, ages, or conditions of life. To imagina- 
tions morbid with terror pestilence indeed seemed to lurk 
in everything — in every morsel eaten, in every rag that 
fluttered in the wind. But who would be so foolhardy and 
irrational as to " throw good life after bad" by nursing a 
dying friend, when Black Death was in the breathing of 
his last sigh or the farewell pressure of his hand ? So the 
nearest and dearest ties were dissolved, the calls of kin- 
dred and humanity neglected, and the sick were left to die 
and then be carted to the grave by hirelings. Numbers 
were driven by an unreasoning terror away from human 



1348. Moral Effects of the Plague. 145 

habitations, and perished miserably in the solitude of the 
fields. 

Among the most remarkable signs of the times was an 
outbreak of fanaticism which exhibited itself in the re- 
vival of the Order of the Flagellants, who 
first appeared in Hungary, but sent a colony FlTdiants 
into England when the Plague broke out in 
that country. Their mission was, as they gave it out, to 
expiate in their own persons the national sins which had 
called down the visible vengeance of God ; and with 
that object, for thirty-three days, the number of the years 
of our Saviour's life on earth — they every morning 
stripped their bodies to the waist and publicly scourged 
their shoulders with knotted and weighted cords, till 
the blood ran down and marked the place of their pen- 
ance by a red clotted spot rn the dust of the street. They 
then assembled, clad in sack-cloth from the loins to the 
feet, with a red cross before and behind on their caps, 
and marched in slow procession through the towns 
chanting a penitential hymn, and frequently prostrating 
themselves on the ground with their hands extended in 
the shape of the cross, while the " master" flogged their 
naked backs and shoulders as they lay. The Flagellants 
received but a cold welcome in practical England, but in 
Germany especially the people were driven half mad by 
this and other religious excitements. In Strasbourg, 
where the Plague carried off 16,000 persons, its horrors 
were aggravated by the Papal interdict (page 69), which 
the pitiless Church did not even then remove ; though a 
remonstrance was addressed to the Pope praying that 
the poor innocent people should not be left to die, with 
all the agony of an unabsolved conscience, and without 
the last consolations of the Gospel. 

In this country, however, by far the most memorable 

L 



146 Edward the Third. a.d. 

results of the Black Death were its social and economical 
effects. It made its appearance in Dorset- 

£ h En P la?d e shire in the month of August of the fatal 
year 1 348, but it was three months before it 
had reached London. Knyghton, who lived at the time, 
says that "many villages and hamlets were desolated, 
without a house being let in them, all those who dwelt in 
them being dead." The country places which the 
Plague attacked were soon silenced, for the pestilence 
did not even spare the brute creation ; and the carcases 
of sheep, horses, and oxen lay putrefying in the fields, 
untouched by dogs or birds of prey. But in London the 
streets and public places were, for a time at least, all 
alive and brisk with funerals — " alive with death." First 
single biers, and then cartloads of corpses hurried along 
to the grave yards: " no time was to be lost, for there 
would soon be too few left living to bury the dead." 

Any attempt to estimate the whole population of Lon- 
don before the Black Death would be no better than a 
guess, but when the poll-tax was levied thirty years after, 
the census gave only 35,000 inhabitants. Now, Stowe 
tells us that he had himself seen an inscription on a 
stone cross standing in the graveyard of the Carthusian 
monks, formerly the " Spittle Croft," " outside west Smith- 
field barres," stating that 50,000 bodies of the dead 
were buried therein and in the adjoining crypt. But it 
was not till the London graveyards were already full that 
" Sir W. Manny purchased the Spittle Croft from the 
master and brethren of St. Bartholomew Spittle to bury 
the dead of the plague." 

The population of Norwich was reduced to the verge 
of extinction. Nothing can be more arbitrary or unsafe 
than the attempt to get at the truth of history by win- 
nowing recorded facts with the sieve of probability ; and, 



1348. Social Effects of the Plague, 147 

making allowance for some exaggerations, we may ac- 
cept the substantial truth of the statement of a contem- 
porary record preserved in the Norwich Guildhall, that 
" 57»374 persons, besides religious and beggars," died in 
that city of the Plague. It is difficult to believe that the 
Norwich of the fourteenth century, though undoubtedly 
the second town in England and the chief seat of its 
most important industry, could have contained a popu- 
lation largely in excess of the above number. 
At Yarmouth 7,000 died out of 10,000. In mouth and 
Bristol " the living were scarce able to bury 
the dead, and the grass grew several inches high in 
Broad Street and High Street." The upper classes suf- 
fered as severely as the poor. In the Abbey of Croxton 
in Lincolnshire all died of the Plague except the Abbot 
and Prior. Parliaments could not meet; no courts of 
justice were opened. The Princess Joan of England, 
while on her way to meet her affianced husband, the heir 
of the kingdom of Castile, was struck down by it at Bor- 
deaux. The Scotch were for many months exempt, and 
11 by the foul dethe of the English " became a popular 
oath north of the Tweed. They even assembled an 
army of marauders to take advantage of the helpless con- 
dition of their neighbours below the border, 
when suddenly the Black Death appeared 
in their camp in the forest of Selkirk and smote down 5,000 
men before they could disband their army, the scattered 
remains of which, returning homewards, carried the pesti- 
lence with them into the remotest parts of Scotland. 

The western coasts of England, where now swarm the 
gigantic hives of our most important in- 
dustries, were then thinly populated, and the Se victims 
southwestern districts — Cornwall, Devon, and 
parts of Somersetshire — were almost without inhabitants. 



148 Edward the Third. A.D. 

The great Abbey of Glastonbury stood on an island, the 
famous Isle of Avelon, in the midst of an impassable 
swamp, and the few villages which existed were built on 
insular or peninsular eminences. The population of Eng- 
land and Wales in the early part of the fourteenth cen- 
tury hardly, if at all, outnumbered that of the London of 
to-day. Out of this total, it is said on contemporary au- 
thority — and the statement is confirmed by modern re- 
search — no less than one-half perished by the Black 
Death in 1348 and 1349. The immediate consequence 
was an enormous increase in the value of labour, and a 
corresponding depreciation in the value of land. In the 
winter which followed the Plague, " flocks and herds 
wandered about the fields and corn without any that 
could drive them." Landlords excused their tenants* 
rents for one, two, or three years, lest they should desert 
their holdings and leave them uncultivated on their own- 
er's hands. Wages rose so high as to swallow up the 
farmer's profit, and it frequently became a question 
whether it would be more ruinous to leave the crops un- 
gathered or to comply with the exorbitant demands of the 
labourers. At last, in June, 1349, Parliament not yet 
having been able to meet, the King issued 
Proclama- ^j s proclamation, addressed to the sheriffs 

lion nxing r ' 

amount of of the several counties: — "Seeing that a 
great part of the people, and principally of 
labourers and servants, is dead of the plague, and that 
some, seeing the necessity of masters and the scarcity 
of servants, will not work unless they receive exorbitant 
wages, and others choosing rather to beg in idleness than 
to earn their bread by labour .... we have ordained, 
by the advice of our prelates and nobles, and other 
skilled persons, that every able-bodied man and woman 
of our kingdom, bond or free, under sixty years of age, 



1349- Statute of Labourers. 149 

not living by trading, or having of his or her own where- 
withall to live .... shall, if so required, serve another 
for the same wages as were the custom in the twentieth 

year of our reign," &c "and seeing that many 

'sturdy beggars' (validi mendicantes), as long as they 
can live by begging and charity, refuse to labour .... 
no one, under pain of imprisonment, shall presume to 
nourish them in their idleness." The King and his coun- 
cil had still to learn that legislative enactments are 
powerless to control the operation of economic laws, and 
that wages must in the long run find their own level, in 
spite of menaces on the part of employers or combina- 
tions on the part of the employed. When Parliament 
met, the year but one following, their first effort was to 
put down the "strike," upon which, it is hardly neces- 
sary to say, the proclamation had produced no effect. 
Complaints were made that the labourers were demanding 
and in many cases receiving, " double or treble what 
they were wont ;" and an attempt was made 
in the famous "Statute of Labourers" (25 Statute of 

v ■' Labourers. 

Edward III., c. 2.) to fix by Act of Par- 
liament a scale of wages, adherence to which on the 
part of masters and men was to be enforced under penalty 
of the stocks, which were to be forthwith set up in every 
town "betwixt this and the Feast of Pentecost." Penalties 
were also imposed upon all such as should flee from one 
district to another to evade the statute. Six years later, 
after a recurrence of the Plague, we hear in Parliamentary 
petitions of "alliances and congregations" of masons 
and carpenters, "and oaths betwixt them made," and 
complaints of fugitive labourers withdrawing themselves 
from due service. The fact was that labourers con- 
stantly escaped from one county to another, and from 
country to town, in the hope of getting better wages ; and 



150 Edward the Third. A.D. 

at last, in 1361, Parliament, undeterred by former exper- 
iences of failure, were guilty of the folly and atrocity of 
passing a downright "fugitive slave law," ordaining that 
a labourer, when caught escaping, should be imprisoned 
till he had "made gree" to the party from whose ser- 
vice he fled, and nevertheless, "in token of falsity, should 
be burned in the forehead with an iron formed and made 
to the letter F." Again in 1368, and again in the last 
year of Edward III.'s reign, attempts were made to en- 
force the Statutes of Labourers, showing how imperfectly 
they were obeyed, and how vain was the endeavour to 
" pass laws to the effect that a man should not have a 
fair day's wages for a fair day's work." The only won- 
der is that, considering the vast area over which this 
Parliamentary tyranny was felt, an open rebellion was 
so long delayed. The poll-tax, " granted" in the early 
part of 1377, but not, apparently, enforced, or severely 
felt till Richard II.'s reign, was but the spark which fired 
the train. Wat Tyler's insurrection, indeed, was sternly 
repressed ; the charters of manumission granted by the 
King were treacherously withdrawn, and hundreds of the 
insurgents executed; but the populace had had every- 
thing their own way for a week ; and, under the dread of 
a servile war, the abolition of compulsory service and all 
their other demands were tacitly but surely accorded. 
Thus within fifty years of the visitation of the Black 
Death serfdom and villainage were prac- 
tically abolished in England, and the la- 
bourer, released from his bondage to the land, was free 
to carry his thews and sinews to the best market. 

As for the owners of the soil, they were compelled to 
abandon the system, hitherto almost universal, of farming 
their own lands ; and, as the tenants to whom they had 
to let them were not possessed of sufficient capital to 



i35 2 - Enactment of 1352. 151 

stock and cultivate the large estates hitherto occupied by 
the bailiff of the lord of the manor, it be- 

r c i « • 1 Arable land 

came necessary at first tor them to hire the converted 
whole or the greater part of the stock upon lnto pasture - 
the farms at a fixed rent, and for the landlord to turn large 
quantities of arable into pasture land. This, however, 
was only a temporary expedient, and before very long a 
system of tenant farming, such as we now see, had be- 
come general. But by this time it had been found out 
that it was more profitable to " grow " wool than corn, 
and vast tracts of land formerly cultivated had accord- 
ingly been converted into pasture. Villages had been 
demolished, and small tenants turned adrift from their 
holdings, and numbers of agriculturists everywhere de- 
prived of employment, " one shepherd and his dog " now 
doing the " work of fifty labourers." And so it came to 
pass that the emancipation of the serfs did not end in 
England, as in other feudal countries, in a minute subdi- 
vision of farms and an all but universal system of peas- 
ant proprietorship. 

The population was not long in recovering its natural 
level. It is recorded that after the Black Death there 
was a remarkable increase of fecundity, and 

Recovery 

double and triple births were not uncom- of the 
mon ; but we may well smile at the state- popu ' 
ment, gravely made by contemporary authorities, that 
mankind from this time forward suffered a permanent 
diminution in the number of teeth possessed by their 
race before the Great Plague ! 

Besides the Statute of Labourers, many other impor- 
tant enactments were passed in the course of 
the decade made sadly memorable by the Statute of 
visitation of the Black Death. One of these, 
"the Statute of Treasons," passed in a famous legis- 



152 Edward the Third, a.d. 

lative year (25th Edward III.), is still beneficially felt 
among us, and may fairly be called one of the bulwarks 
of English liberty. Up to this time "treason " had been 
so loosely defined that it was within the power of the 
judges to bring within its penalties, as "constructive 
treasons," acts which really amounted to no more than 
felony or trespass. Thus those who " appropriated free 
warren," or "unlawfully took venison, fish, or other 
goods," were frequently convicted of treason and con- 
demned to death without benefit of clergy ; the object of 
the judge in giving this "construction" being that, 
whereas in the case of minor misdemeanours the lands 
of the criminal were forfeit to the lord of the fee, in con- 
viction for high treason the estates were forever lost to 
the lord and confiscated to the Crown. In answer to the 
repeated petitions of the Commons, treason was minutely 
defined by the famous statute of this year, and " from 
the time of its enactment to the present day that defini- 
tion has always formed the kernel of the law 
Purveyros on ^g n treason." The same Parliament 
and Pro- passed the Statutes of " Purveyors " and of 

visors. r J 

u Provisors," to both of which allusion has 
already been made, the former being intended as a check 
upon the exactions of the officers whose business it was 
to procure necessaries for the King's household ; the lat- 
ter upon the Pope's abuse of his power of appointing to 
benefices in England, which was a frequent subject of 
legislation in later years of the reign. The Statute of 
Provisors passed in this Parliament set forth that, 
"whereas the Holy Church of England was founded in 
the estate of prelacy, to inform the people of the law of 
God, and to do hospitalities, alms, and other works of 
charity, and certain possessions were assigned to sustain 
the said charge .... the Pope of Rome, accroaching to 



i35°- Enactments 0/1552. 153 

himself the scignories of such possessions, doth give the 
same to aliens who did never dwell in England — . . . 
the said oppressions from henceforth shall not be suf- 
fered ;" and as for the " provisors M themselves, for so the 
persons "practising this new device" were called, "they 
should become liable to imprisonment." 

Another abuse had come to such a pitch as to call for 
the interference of Parliament. It was found that certain 
attorneys and barristers ("gentz de ley") 
had got themselves returned as knights of l^wyeS^x- 
the shire chiefly with the object of promoting Sjuded from 
the private interests of their professional 
clients by introducing them into Parliamentary peti- 
tions. It was therefore ordained that no practising 
lawyer should be returned as member for the shire. 
All lawyers, however, were not expressly excluded 
as such, which was actually the case in the " Parlia- 
mentum Indoctum" of the fifth year of Henry IV. 's 
reign. 

The rest of the enactments passed in these ten years 
were of a more questionable character, all involving 
more or less of interference with the freedom of trade. 
King, Lords, and Commons, equally igno- 
rant of the first rudiments of economic interference 

with trade. 

science, seem to have believed that in mat- 
ters of this kind that government governed best which 
governed most. Penalties were imposed upon " regrators 
and forestallcrs" who were banished out of the towns they 
lived in, and were made liable to the " stretch-neck " or 
pillory. These hard names were applied to persons who 
purchased wholesale, and made their profit by selling 
again to the retail dealers. A statute passed in the 27th 
Edward III. provided that " no English merchant .... 
shall go into Gascoin, there to abide, to make bargain on 



154 Edward the Third. a.d. 

buying of wines before the time of the vintage — that is to 
say, before the common passage be made to seek wines 
there, and that no merchant go toward such wines to 
forestall them before they come to the staple or port." In 
the same year was enacted the Statute of the Staple, 
"which provided that the staples" (or privileged mar- 
kets, where, and where only, certain goods could be sold) 
" should be held at specified places within the realm and 
not elsewhere;" and minute regulations were adopted 
as to the mode of carrying on trade in the staples, and 
the limit of rent to be charged for houses in those towns. 
The great staple productions of the kingdom were wool, 
leather, lead and tin, and, under the Statute in question, 
these articles could be dealt in for exportation by none 
but a close corporation called the " Merchants of the 
Staple." Four years later, the M stock-fish of Boston," 
the " salmon of Berwick and the fish of Bristol," and 
the herrings round the coast became the subjects of legis- 
lation. No herring was to be "bought or sold in the 
sea, till the fishers come into the haven with their her- 
rings and that the cable of the ship be down to land ;" 
and a little later it was made a subject of complaint in 
the preamble of a statute that " many merchants do 
bargain for herring, and every one of them by malice 
and envy increaseth upon other ; and if one proffer 40s. 
another will proffer 10s. more .... and so every one 
surmounteth the other in the bargain, and such proffers 
extend to more than the price of the herring upon which 
the fishers proffered to sell it at the beginning." Trade 
of any kind was absolutely forbidden with Scotland. 
With the Irish, traffic was not prohibited, but all inter- 
marriage and approximation of the English and Irish 
races was jealously interdicted. The statute of 31st Ed- 
ward III. runs thus : — M Whereas by marriages and divers 



i35°- Seafight of V Espagnols sur mer. 155 

other ties and the nursing of infant children among the 
English, dwelling in the Marches, and the Irish, infinite 
destructions and other evils have happened hitherto, we 
will and command that such marriages to be contracted 
between English and Irish, and other private ties and 
nursing of infants, shall from henceforth cease, and be 
altogether done away." Thus early did English legisla- 
tion begin to sow the seed of the " wind M whose crop is 
the "whirlwind" in the soil of this unfortunate island. 



THIRD DECADE.— A. D. 1347-i357. 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM THE OCCUPATION OF CALAIS TO THE BATTLE OF 
POITIERS. 

The events which took place on the Continent during 
this period — the indecisive battles, the endless repetition 
of negotiations for peace and preparations for war — may 
be dismissed as of minor importance, till we come to the 
expedition of the Prince of Wales ending in the victory 
of Poitiers, which laid France prostrate at the feet of the 
invader, and sent her king a prisoner to London. 

It is, however, impossible to omit all mention of the 
famous sea-fight of " L/Espagnols sur mer," in which the 
naval pride of Spain was first humbled by 

. ' A. D. 1350. 

an English fleet, and which vindicated for Battieof 
Edward III. his proudest and best deserved no is SP ' 



; sur 



title of " King of the Sea." The splendid men 
land victories associated with the memory of his reign 



156 Edward the Third. a.d. 

are properly the victories of the Prince of Wales, but 
here, as before in the naval engagement off Sluys, it was 
the valour and prowess of the King himself which won 
the day. 

It is difficult to account for an invasion of England by 
the Spaniards at this time ; but we may reasonably 
suppose, in the absence of any alleged grounds for hos- 
tility between England and Spain, that it was at least 
concerted with the French sovereign. "Charles of 
Spain," who commanded the Spanish fleet, was the 
younger brother of " Lewis of Spain," Marshal of France, 
both belonging to that dynasty of La Cerda which ought, 
by right of primogeniture, to have been occupying the 
throne of Castile. For the famous Alfonso X., the last 
undisputed sovereign, had left two sons, the elder, called, 
from an unenviable peculiarity of physical structure, 
"Ferdinand de la Cerda" (or "Ferdinand with the 
Bristle "), and the younger, Sancho, who usurped the 
throne, and was great-grandfather of Pedro the Cruel, 
the reigning king. But Ferdinand, the deprived Infanta 
of Castile, had married Blanche, sister of Philip the Fair, 
and thus the branch of La Cerda were near kinsmen of 
the royal house of France. It is important to keep these 
relationships in mind, partly as explaining the present 
conduct of Charles of Spain, and partly as bearing upon 
other events hereafter to be described. 

The battle was fought out at sea, the English having 
weighed from Sandwich, the Spaniards from the harbour 
of Sluys. While the fleets were advancing across the 
Channel to meet each other, King Edward, who com- 
manded in person, sat in* the bow of the "Cogge 
Thomas," "in a black velvet jacket and a beaver hat 
which became him well," and passed the time away joy- 
ously, listening to his minstrels' music, and the songs 



I 355» Sea-fight of L* Espagnoh sur mer. 157 

which John of Chandos had brought home from Ger- 
many, — but ever and anon turning up his eye to the 
look-out on the masthead, to know if the enemy was yet 
in sight. At last the man on the watch shouted, " I see a 
ship, and she looks like a Spaniard!" Then again, " I 
see two, three, four of them !" and again, " God help me ! 
I see so many that I cannot count them !" At the first 
onset the " Cogge Thomas " was struck so hard amid- 
ships by a huge Spanish " nief " that her mainmast went 
by the board and she began to take in water. They 
thought she was sinking, so they grappled her fast to an- 
other great Spanish ship, and the King and the English 
knights and nobles — for it was by them that this battle 
was fought and won — swarmed up on the decks of the 
tall Spaniard, beat back her crew with swords and hatch- 
ets, and threw every soldier into the sea. Then, man- 
ning her with English seamen, and casting off their 
own sinking ship, they bore down in their prize upon 
the remaining Spaniards, some twenty of which were 
ultimately boarded or sent to the bottom, not a single 
sailor in a captured ship being "taken to mercy." The 
Prince of Wales too grappled a Spanish nief of immense 
size, and carried her after a furious fight just in time to 
see his own ship go down. Another English vessel got 
disabled, and entangled with a Spaniard, which, seeing 
her helpless condition, made sail and was carrying her 
off to sea. But a"varlet" named Hannekin climbed 
up the side and leaped on the deck of the nief in the 
middle of her crew, and before they could stop him, cut 
the halliards of the mainsail ; which coming down with 
a run upon the deck, the English boarded the Spaniard 
in the confusion, threw her crew overboard, and steered 
her back as an English ship, into the battle. 

A week before this engagement took place, King Philip 



158 Edward the Third. A.D. 

of France died, and was succeeded by his son John, 
Duke of Normandy, but the conditions of the interna- 
tional quarrel were in no way affected by the change of 
sovereign. For four or five years, however, there was 
a cessation of overt hostilities. The English people gen- 
erally were getting heartily tired of the war, but the 
King and his barons were getting equally tired of inac- 
tion, and after various, and probably half-hearted en- 
deavours for peace, constantly stultified by mutual ag- 
gressions, in the year 1355a second tripartite 
Tri'ie 3 ml expedition was planned by England against 

vasion of France. One army, under the Prince of 

Wales, was to land at Bordeaux ; a second 
to reinforce the Countess of Montfort in a renewed strug- 
gle with Charles of Blois, who had at length ransomed 
himself from his captivity in the Tower ; and a third, 
under the King in person, was to make a descent upon 
Normandy by way of Cherbourg. For Ed- 
makes ward had got a new ally and supporter in 
the^ingof tnat quarter — though he soon proved a 
Navarre. broken reed — in the person of the very man 
who, had the English King's view of the rights of the 
succession been established, ought to have been on the 
throne of France. Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, 
was now in his twenty-third year, and had succeeded to 
the royal title on the death of his mother, the daughter 
of King Louis X. of France, in 1345. His right to the 
French crown was clearly better than that of Edward 
III., for whereas Edward claimed it as eldest grandson 
of Philip IV., Charles of Navarre stood in that relation- 
ship to a more recent sovereign. He was also, from his 
father, King Consort of Navarre, the inheritor of the 
earldom of Evreux in Normandy, and as such, a feuda- 
tory of the French crown. It was natural, under all 



1356. Charles of Na varre. 159 

the circumstances, that the sen of Philip of Valois 
should wish to be on friendly terms with this powerful 
vassal, and King John accordingly invited him to his 
court and affianced him to his daughter. But Charles 
seems to have had just cause of complaint against his 
royal father-in-law, who, amongst other injuries, had 
withheld from him his wife's stipulated dower ; and had 
taken advantage of certain complications which had 
arisen, to bestow two French counties, the ancient ap- 
panage of the Navarrese crown, on his favourite Charles 
de la Cerda, whom he made Constable of France in 1350. 
Shortly before the time at which we have now arrived, 
Charles of Navarre had treacherously assassinated his 
rival Charles of Spain, and fled across the French 
frontier to Avignon ; where he met and entered into 
correspondence with Lancaster "of the Wryneck," then 
on a mission from Edward to Pope Clement VI., and 
elevated since we last heard of him to a dukedom — the 
second created in England since the Norman Conquest. 
John had, in the absence of the King of Navarre invaded 
Normandy and seized upon several of the fortresses 
belonging to his earldom ; so Charles, in revenge, agreed 
with King Edward to give him possession of Cherbourg 
and other strong places in Normandy, which would en- 
able him to land troops unmolested, and give him a safe 
approach to within a few leagues of Paris. He also pro- 
mised to support the English King with a fleet manned 
with his own subjects from Spain. This promise he kept, 
and landing at Cherbourg awaited the arrival of the 
expedition from England. But the fleet had been driven 
back by storms, and in the meantime Charles, whose 
patience was soon exhausted, had suffered himself to be 
reconciled to the King of France, and had entered into 
alliance with him. Edward hearing that his new con- 



160 Edward the Third. a.d, 

federate had already deserted him, and that John was 
getting an army together, determined to invade France 
by way of Calais, and landing there, laid waste Picardy 
and Artois. John advanced to meet him, but, after 
mutual challenges, as usual, more or less courteously 
declined, the two armies withdrew; and Edward returned 
to England to repel a new inroad of the Scotch; an 
inroad so fiercely avenged in the opening of 
Burnt ~ the following year by the havoc and destruc- 

tion of the Lothians, that this fatal February 
was talked of for long years after as the " Burnt Candle- 
mas." When news was brought to Edward at Calais that 
the town of Berwick was in danger of falling into the 
hands of the Scots, he swore an oath that he would sleep 
no more than one night in any town before he arrived 
there to raise the siege. This oath he certainly did not 
keep, for he took time on his way to hold a Parliament in 
London and fortify himself by a larger subsidy than had 
ever before been granted him — namely, 50s. a sack on 
exported wool ; the quantity of wool at this time annu- 
ally sent out of the country averaging no less than 100,000 
sacks. He had also to collect an army, which consisted 
of between twenty and thirty thousand men, for this time 
Edward was determined on the final and complete sub- 
jugation of Scotland. King David Bruce was still a 
prisoner in his hands, owing to the failure of negotiations 
for his ransom which had been going on for ten years 
since the battle of Neville's Cross. Edward's 
?f e Bani a ol. 0n " dear cousin Edward Balliol, King of Scot- 
land," whose fortunes had steadily declined 
since the time of his audacious snatch at the crown, was 
now induced finally to surrender any rights he might be 
supposed to possess, by the form of picking up Scottish 
earth and stones, and handing them to the English King ; 



1356. Invasion of Scotland. 161 

in consideration of a round sum of money down, and a 
pension of ,£2,000 a year to be paid quarterly. He lived 
for seven years longer as a private gentleman in York- 
shire, and the respect with which the ex-sovereign was 
regarded may be judged of by the following extract from 
a royal proclamation : — " Know that whereas our dear 
cousin Edward Balliol, King of Scotland, at various 
times hunted and took sixteen stags, six hinds, eight 
staggards, three fawns, and six roedeer in the park and 
fished in the ponds .... took two pike of three and a 
half feet long, three of three feet, twenty of which were 
some two and a half feet long, and also 109 perch, roach, 
tench, and skelys, and six breams and bremettes, — we, 
listening to the supplication of the said Edward, have 
pardoned him." 

The English relieved Berwick, but at Edinburgh their 
progress was arrested by want of provisions, the fleet 
which ought to have met them at Leith being 
driven back by a storm ; and there was Invasion of 

J ' Scotland. 

nothing for it but an ignominious and indeed 
disastrous retreat, for the Scots swarmed in every thicket 
they passed, and hovered on their rear, cutting off the 
stragglers and wounded as they fell behind. Early the 
following year (1357) negotiations for the ransom of 
David were renewed, and at its close he was at last re- 
leased, the Scotch stipulating to pay a sum of 100,000 
marks in twenty half-yearly instalments, and to keep the 
peace till the money was all paid. Twenty of the heirs 
of the principal Scotch families were given and accepted 
as hostages, and in default of payment David was to sur- 
render himself again to captivity. 

Before King Edward, abandoning his share in the triple 
invasion of France, hastened off to the relief of Berwick, 
the Prince of Wales had already landed at Bordeaux. 

M 



1 62 Edward the Third. a.d. 

Though in his own account of his campaigns, he 
speaks of having been disappointed in his expectations 
of effecting a junction with the Duke of Lancaster, who, 
it will be remembered, was sent into Brittany to fight 
for the De Montforts ; it is difficult to believe that there 
was any concerted plan of action among the three divi- 
sions of the invading army, the most formidable which had 
yet left the English shores. The first campaign of the 
Prince that of the autumn of 1355 — began and 
paign oA'he ended in a successful but inglorious maraud- 
Prince of j n g ra jd U p 0n the neighbours of the Gascon 

lords who planned it, " a people good and 
simple, who did not know what war was." They shun- 
ned the fortresses and plundered the undefended villages 
and country from the English border to the Mediterran- 
ean shore, and returned home laden with spoil wrung 
from unoffending and defenceless peasants and towns- 
folk. His second campaign will be described in the next 
chapter. It was of a similar character, but so rashly 
planned and improvidently conducted that, like Edward's 
retreat ten years before, it must have ended in irrepara- 
ble disaster, had it not been for the almost incredible 
blundering of the French leaders, and the indomitable 
spirit of endurance which gave final victory to a handful 
of Englishmen driven into a corner, over organized 
armies of tens of thousands led on by all the chivalry of 
France. The battle of Azincourt sixty years later was 
like that of Poitiers over again. In both of these the 
French crown was at stake, and in both it was practically 
lost ; but there was this enormous difference, that Henry 
V., at Azincourt, as elsewhere, was in earnest, and the Ed- 
wards, father and son, were not ; for had they been so, 
the Black Prince, after the battle of Poitiers, might and 
would, have marched unopposed through the heart of 
France, and dictated his own terms in her capital. 



1356- King John summons the States General. 163 



THIRD DECADE.— A. D. 1347-1357. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE POITIERS CAMPAIGN. 

Under pressure of the double alarm caused by the 
English invasion and the emptiness of the French ex- 
chequer, King John had taken the unwonted 
and critical step of calling together the States summons 11 
General of France, or rather of the northern ^ Sta f es 

1 General. 

portion of his kingdom in which the " Langue 
d'oil" was spoken. For France was at this date divided 
into two great provinces, the Langue d'oc and the Langue 
d'oil, the former speaking the Roman Provencal, and ruled 
by custom, the latter speaking the Roman Wallon, and 
governed by written law. The Langue d'oc of those days 
comprised the whole of the country south of the line of 
the Dordogne, whereas, in modern French geography, it 
is limited, like our own " Northumberland," to a small 
central portion of the wide territory once included in 
its boundaries and implied in its name. Though, like 
all French Kings, extremely unwilling to grant his sub- 
jects a voice in their own government, John's great 
uncle, Philip the Fair, had invented this institution (les 
Etats-Gen6raux) in imitation, probably, of the Spanish 
Cortes or the English Parliament. But the States were 
so unfrequently and capriciously assembled as to offer 
no resemblance, except in outward form, to free parlia- 
ments. They had no experience in public affairs, were 
wholly unacquainted with finance, and, indeed, the pub- 



1 64 Edward the Third. a.d. 

lie accounts of France were kept on so rude and cum- 
brous a system that " experts " only professed to under- 
stand them. Roman instead of Arabic numerals and 
notation were used in keeping these accounts, and, in 
fact, continued to be used in France down to the i8th 
century. The States on this occasion hardly knew the 
way to set about the problem proposed to them — namely, 
how to raise a sum of money which should enable the 
Government to pay off the more urgent public debts, 
store the arsenals, equip the soldiers, and remedy the 
disastrous consequences of the debasement of the coin- 
age. They granted the King a liberal supply, but, in 
order to raise it, imposed two taxes of a most oppressive 
and unpopular kind, viz., an octroi, or duty, of eight- 
pence on the pound of everything sold ; and an impost 
upon salt, the Gabelle, — which has always been, for 
some mysterious reason, peculiarly exasperating to the 
French people. One of the results of this measure was 
a renewal of hostilities between King John and the King 
of Navarre ; for he and his barons, and notably the Count 
of Harcourt, declared that "whoever else paid the salt 
tax their people should not," an insult which the French 
King deeply resented, and ere long ferociously avenged. 
The eldest son of King John was Charles, afterwards 
called the " Dauphin," the first of that title, which has 
ever since been borne by the heir-apparent of the kings 
of France, the reversion of it having been sold to Philip 
VI. by the last Dauphin of Viennois. This Charles, 
having been created Duke of Normandy, had, at his 
father's instigation, invited the nobles of 
King John ^ at province to a banquet at his Court at 

seizes the r * 

King of Rouen. As they sat at table the King of 

France entered, accompanied by a marshal 

with a drawn sword in his hand, and seizing Charles of 



1356. Affairs of France. 165 

Navarre and shaking him, cried out furiously, " By the 
beard of my father, I will neither eat nor drink as long 
as you are alive !" An attempt was made at resistance, 
but it was overpowered by King John's attendants, who, 
at his command, carried off the King of Navarre, and 
kept him in safe custody. The Count of Harcourt and 
other barons were also seized ; then, after the King had 
leisurely dined, he and the young Duke, with their 
retinue, took horse and rode out to the " Field of Mercy," 
and there witnessed the execution of the Count and the 
other nobles. The more important victim was sent to 
Paris and committed to the prison of the Louvre. Upon 
this his brother Philip of Navarre, and Godfrey, brother 
of the murdered Count, having sent their defiance to 
"John, calling himself King of France," took ship for 
England and threw themselves into the arms of Edward. 
The English King espoused their quarrel, and sent 
orders to the Duke of Lancaster to march into Normandy 
to their assistance. The Duke's brief campaign in that 
province was inglorious, and unimportant except for the 
advantage it gave to the French King ; who, having 
raised an army to resist him and overrun Normandy, was 
able at once to march southwards and get beforehand 
with the Prince of Wales. It was feared that the Prince's 
invasion by way of Bordeaux (p. 158) was directed 
against Paris, so King John took up his headquarters at 
Chartres, a position which enabled him to command at 
once the approaches to the capital, and the passages of 
the Loire. Young Edward had begun to be called the 
Black Prince, not from the colour of his armour, as is 
generally supposed, but in imitation of the French, who 
named him, perhaps in no very complimentary sense, 
" Le Prince Noir." But he probably took pride in a 
title more famous and dearer to the English than that of 



1 66 Edward the Th ; rd. A.d. 

Duke of Aquitaine or Prince of Wales, and in his will 
we read of the black drapery of his " Hall," and the 
black devices and plumes which he used only at tour- 
naments. He now marched out of Bordeaux with an 
army which probably never exceeded 8,000 
Second Cam- men an d must have been considerably re- 

paign of the % J 

Prince of duced in number before the day of the great 

battle. He crossed the Dordogne at Ber- 
gerac, and overran in turn the counties of Querci, Li- 
mousin, Auvergne, and Blois ; but it was not till he had 
got as far north as Vierzon that he learned that the 
French army, in great force, was in possession of the 
line of the Loire. Whatever may have been his inten- 
tions, it had now become evident that to effect a junc- 
tion with Lancaster by marching into Normandy was 
out of the question ; but, as the French army lay north 
of his position, he reckoned on being able to command 
a safe retreat, with his accumulated spoils, to Bordeaux. 
The farthest point which he reached was Romorantin, 
which it took him three days' hard fighting to reduce, 
though not only cannon, but Greek fire also, are said to 
have been employed in the siege. After this perilous 
delay — for he was in complete ignorance of the move- 
ments of the French — he commenced his retreat by way 
of Poitiers toward Bordeaux. 

Meanwhile King John, who if he then meant to inter- 
cept the Prince, had already lost precious time, moved 
his forces across the Loire : and the two armies marched 
along only a few miles apart, in two lines at first nearly 
parallel, but soon converging rapidly on the village of 
Chauvigny, where there was a bridge over the Vienne. 
But the French crossed the river first — though it took 
their long columns of mailed horsemen more than a day 
to pass over the bridge — and on Saturday, September 17, 



1356. The Day before the Battle. 167 

the Prince discovered, by finding a reconnoitring party 
driven in on his front, that the French army now lay be- 
tween himself and home. This troop of observation was 
commanded by a Gascon lord, the Captal (or chieftain) 
de Buch, who, from this time forward, becomes one of 
the most prominent figures in the war. When he brought 
to the English camp the news of the position of the 
French forces and of their prodigious numbers, the full 
danger of his situation flashed at once on 
the mind of the Prince. "God help us," battle of 

said he ; " all that is left us is to fight as best 
we can." 

As the only fear of the French was lest the enemy 
should escape out of the trap into which they had been 
brought, they allowed the prince leisure to choose his 
own position, which he did with consummate generalship 
and rare good fortune. The main strength of the French 
army lying in its splendid cavalry, while the English had 
but a small force of men-at-arms and relied chiefly upon 
their archers — it was of the first importance to select a 
battle-field affording effectual cover for the latter, and at 
the same time presenting every possible natural obstacle 
to the movements of horse. Such a spot they found, 
some five miles from the city of Poitiers, on the edge of 
the plains of Maupertuis, overlooking a valley which was 
intersected by the little river Miauson, and already filled, 
as far as the eye could see, with the glittering squadrons 
of 40,000 French cavalry. The hill itself was surrounded 
with close fields and with hedges, then in the thick leaf- 
age of autumn — through which arrows could fly, but 
mounted men could not make their way. One steep 
lane through which four horsemen could barely ride 
abreast led up to a vineyard on the hill, and there the 
Black Prince and his little force of English men-at-arms 



1 68 Edward the Third. a.d. 

took up what many, doubtless, thought was their last 
stand, at daybreak on Monday, September 19, 1356. 
One-half of the archers had been placed close along the 
back of the hedges on either side of the hollow lane ; and 
one-half were posted in front of the Prince's position, 
drawn up in open lines, one man behind another, and 
presenting to a bird's-eye view a strong resemblance to a 
harrrow. 

Both armies had taken up their respective positions 
and expected battle on the Sunday, but be- 

Intercession A • 

of Cardinal fore the attack sounded the Cardinal Tal- 
leyrand-Perigord gained audience of the 
French King, and with uplifted hands entreated him to 
pause. " Most dear Sire," he said, "you have here with 
you all the flower of knighthood of your kingdom against a 
handful of people, such as the English are when com- 
pared with your army, and you may have them upon 
other terms than by a battle — which will be more honor- 
able and profitable for you than to risk such a fine army 
and such noble persons. I implore of you, therefore, for 
the love of God, to let me go to the Prince and remon- 
strate with him." The Cardinal found young Edward 
fully conscious of his perilous situation, and even in want 
of food; and, in answer to the question whether he 
would accept mediation, he said at once that he was 
ready to listen to any terms that would save his own 
and his soldiers' honour. The Cardinal returned to 
King John, and representing to him that it was impossi- 
ble for the English to escape him, gained his reluctant 
consent to a truce till daybreak on Monday ; upon which 
the King dismissed his army to their quarters, and caused 
to be erected on the spot where he stood his " rich pavil- 
ion of vermilion samite." The Cardinal passed a busy 
Sunday between the royal tent and the camping-ground 



1356. Beginning of the Battle, 169 

of the Prince, endeavouring, with evident sincerity of 
purpose, to stave off the impending conflict. The Prince 
on his part was willing to yield up all the places and 
towns which he had taken, to set all his prisoners at 
liberty without ransom, and to swear an oath that he 
would not appear in arms against France for seven 
years. But the Bishop of Chalons, who hated the Eng- 
lish King, rose up in the French council of war, and said 
that it would be folly and weakness not to grasp "the 
victory of blood " which God Almighty had put into 
their hands. This cruel and unchristian suggestion pre- 
vailed over the benevolent efforts of the Cardinal, who 
was told plainly enousrh at last that he 

• 1 1 , , 1 French 

"might go home as soon as he pleased or conditions 
worse might betide him. " The final terms re J ecte 
offered to the Prince were that the rest of the English army 
would be allowed to depart, on condition that he and one 
hundred of his knights should surrender at discretion to 
the French King. These were conditions which even the 
pacific Cardinal could not urge upon the acceptance of 
the Prince, to whom he said, at parting, that there was 
now nothing for it but to fight it out, and to fight his best. 
Young Edward answered, "That will I and my soldiers 
do, and God defend the right." During the whole of that 
Sunday (well or ill-spent, who shall say ?) the English 
had been raising banks and digging trenches, and mak- 
ing barricades of waggons to strengthen the weak points 
of their position ; and Monday morning found them cool 
and collected, and drawn up as on the Saturday before. 
The battle was to be fought on foot, but the Prince and 
his men-at-arms had their horses close at hand, and a 
small squadron kept their saddles, to be ready for an 
emergency. A new feature in the disposition of to-day 
was that a body of 300 bowmen and as many more men- 



170 Edward the Third, a.d. 

at-arms were placed in ambush behind a rising ground 
at a little distance on the French left, to be ready at a 
critical moment to make a flank attack on the "battle" 
of the Duke of Normandy ; who, with the two elder sons 
of King John, commanded the second of the three 
grand divisions of the French army, the first being led by 
the Duke of Orleans, and the third, which stood as a re- 
serve in the rear, by the King himself. Each of these 
"battles" consisted of 16,000 men-at-arms, and "there,'' 
says Froissart, " might be seen all the flower of the no- 
bility of France richly dressed out in brilliant armour ; 
no knight or squire, for fear of dishonour, dared to re- 
main at home." When both armies were arrayed, King 
John asked the advice of Sir Eustache de Ribeaumont, 
who, together with his old companion De Chargny, was 
in the field, as to the best means of attacking the English 
position. He replied, with bad judgment, but fatal per- 
suasiveness — "On foot, Sire, except 300 chosen men, the 
best soldiers in your army, who must be well mounted 
and armed, to break, if possible, this body of archers ; 
then your battalions must advance on foot and attack 
the men-at-arms hand to hand." 

The first assault on such a position could be little better 
than a forlorn hope ; but the 300 " enfans perdus " were 
quickly found, and, headed by Clermont and D'Andre- 
hen, the two Marshals of France, the doomed squadron 
advanced to dislodge the English archers. The latter 
withheld their shot till the column had fairly entered the 
lane and were spurring through it to get at the " harrow " 
of bowmen drawn up at its farther end ; then they let fly 
so thick and fast, and at such deadly short range, that 
the narrow passage was choked up with men and horses 
struggling in the agonies of death, and advance and 
retreat became alike impossible ; while the archers posted 



1356. Battle of Poitiers. 171 

at the head of the lane, and the archers who lined the 
hedge on either side of it, poured in volleys of arrows 
which no armour could resist, upon the writhing masses 
of fallen horsemen. A few of the most daring or des- 
perate broke through the hedges and reached the open 
space before the English front in twos and threes : but 
not a man of the column of the Marshals got near 
enough to exchange a blow with the enemy. 

Meantime the carnage was fearfuL D'Andrehen was 
unhorsed and taken, and Clermont slain. The rear of 
this column fell back upon the second battle commanded 
by the young Duke of Normandy, which now began to 
open and to waver. This was the moment eagerly ex- 
pected by the 600 men in ambush, who now, topping the 
hill which had hitherto concealed them, charged down 
the slope with irresistible impetus upon the flank of the dis- 
ordered battalion. Upon this, the lords who had charge 
of the French King's sons hurried them off the field 
under the escort of 800 mounted men-at-arms : their, de- 
parture was taken for flight by the whole division, and 
was the signal for a general satcve qui fieut. All these 
movements, however, had but cleared the field of battle 
for nobler combatants. The third division led by the 
French King, and the men-at-arms of the Black Prince, 
had hitherto been only lookers-on ; but when the second 
battle of the French began to break, Sir John Chandos 
spoke thus to the Prince: "Sir, the day is ours: let us 
mount and advance upon the French King. I know him 
for a brave knight whose valour will not let him fly, and 
he will remain with us, if it please God and St. George." 
The Prince was only too ready to take his share in the 
strife and danger of the day, and the main strength of 
the English army abandoning their sheltering vines and 
hedges, spurred on into the open plain. The Duke of 



172 Edward the Third, a.d. 

Athens, now Constable of France, encountered them 
half-way at the head of a splendid troop, shouting, 
"Mountjoye, St. Denys!" to which the English shouted 
back, " St. George for Guienne!" and charged them at 
full speed, overthrowing horse and man, and slaying the 
Constable and those of his staff who could not save 
themselves by flight. A like fate befell the German 
squadron and its three earls, who next threw themselves 
in the way of the English horse as they made for that 
part of the field where the King himself had taken his 
stand. 

As the Prince's column drew near, King John and his 
guards dismounted — a fatal step when charged by cav- 
alry in an open plain — and met the shock on foot. But 
the French far outnumbered the attacking column, and 
the struggle was long and hard fought. " King John, on 
his part, proved himself a good knight, and had a fourth 
of his people behaved so well, the field would have been 
his." He stood, battle-axe in hand, in the thickest of the 
fight, dealing his blows right and left, against his assail- 
ants, his little son Philip, crouching close behind him, 
with his arm around his father's waist, warning him 
against unexpected thrusts. Twice wounded in the face, 
he was at length beaten down, and De Chargny, who 
bore the Oriflamme, was struck dead at his side. Nine- 
teen of his knights were accoutred like himself to deceive 
the enemy ; but he seems to have been recognised, for 
desperate efforts were made to capture him, and his as- 
sailants cried out, " Yield, or you are a dead man !" "To 
whom should I yield?" said the King. "Where is my 
cousin, the Prince of Wales ?" " He is not here," said a 
broad-shouldered knight, who had forced his way through 
the press, "but yield to me, and I will carry you to him." 
"And who are you?" said John. "My name," replied 



1357- Defeat and Capture of King John. 173 

the knight in pure French, " is Denys dc Morbecq, of Ar- 
tois, but I serve the King of England because I have for- 
feited all that I possessed in France." " I yield to you," 
said the French King, handing his right-hand glove to the 
outlawed knight. But the others were by no means dis- 
posed to surrender the King and the little prince, who 
never left his father's side, and a struggle ensued ; in which 
the royal captives ran the risk of being roughly handled. 
Meanwhile the Prince of Wales, who, unable to pene- 
trate to the French King, had been raging "like a fell 
and cruel lion " in the melee, was carried off exhausted 
and weary by Sir John Chandos, and compelled to sit 
down and rest himself and drank a cup of wine. His 
banner was then hoisted on a neighbouring bush as a 
rallying-point for the scattered English knights, who soon 
gathered round in ever-increasing numbers. The min- 
strels sounded, the trumpets and clarions blew, and a 
crimson tent was erected for the night quarters of the 
conquerer. As soon as his marshals came up, the Prince 
enquired if any one had tidings of the King. "Nothing 
certain,' ' was the reply, "but he must be either killed or 
a prisoner, for he never quitted his post." Then the 
Prince sent in search of him the Earls of Warwick and 
of Suffolk, and these, on reaching a rising ground, beheld 
a crowd tumultuously advancing with a captive in the 
midst of them. The English and the Gascons were dis- 
puting the possession of the prisoner, who said to his 
captors, " Gentlemen, gentlemen, I pray you carry me 
and my son courteously to my cousin, the Prince, and do 
not fight about me, for I am a great lord, and able to 
make you all rich." When the English earls saw the 
tumult, they set spurs to their horses, and riding up, 
learned from the bystanders that the captive was indeed 
the King of France, and that no less than ten knights 



174 Edward the Third* a.d. 

laid claim to him as their lawful prisoner. Then the 
barons, pushing through the crowd, ordered all men in the 
Prince's name to draw aside on pain of instant death, 
and dismounting, advanced with profound deference 
towards the King and conducted him to the Prince's tent. 
The battle of Poitiers had some points of resemblance 
and many of difference as compared with that of Creci. 
Both victories were won by a compact little regular force 
over an enemy with an overwhelming preponderance of 
numbers, but badly posted, ill-handled, and over-con- 
fident In both battles the plebeian soldier, of the class 
which had been cut to pieces at Hastings, but had won 
the day at Bannockburn, proved himself once again a 
match, and more than a match, for the knights and no- 
bles, whom chivalry had held invincible by men of low 
degree. The defeat of Creci was attributed, and proba- 
bly attributable, to the sullen and cowardly conduct of 
the Genoese mercenaries at the commencement of the 
battle, while at Poitiers the fatal omen of failure in a first 
attack was given by the picked soldiers of the national 
army. Again, the latter battle was ended and the vic- 
tory of the Black Prince secured earlier in the day than 
the Battle of Creci began, and that too over an enemy 
refreshed with sleep and far better cared for than the 
English, instead of, as at Creci, over a force which strag- 
led into the field of battle wet, hungry, dispirited, and 
footsore with a long previous march. But the most 
striking difference between the two battles, and one 
which went a long way to redeem the defeat of Poitiers, 
was the heroism of the French King and his body-guard 
of nobles, while, with " all but life and honour lost," they 
stood at bay on foot against their mounted assailants. 
"Those that were there," says Froissart, " behaved them- 
selves so loyally that their heirs to this day are honoured 



1356. Proceedings after the Battle, 175 

for their sake.'* As for the King himself, it was no 
empty compliment which the Prince paid him as he 
waited at supper that evening on the royal captive. 
*' Dear sir," said he, " do not make a poor meal because 
the Almighty God has not given such an event to the 
day as you could wish. You have this day gained such 
high renown for prowess that you have surpassed the 
best knights on your side ; and all on our side who have 
seen and observed the actions of the day allow and de- 
cree you the prize and garland." 

Of the English army, the Black Prince proved him- 
self to be the first in prowess as in command, and John 
of Chandos, the Captal de Buch, and Lord Audley, with 
his four squires, won great glory by their valour and 
deeds of arms ; but indeed it might be said of the Eng- 
lish at Poitiers as of the Scotch at Flodden Field : — 

Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, 
As fearlessly and well. 

The next morning the conquerors set out for Bordeaux, 
leaving the rich city of Poitiers unmolested, for they were 
already encumbered with spoil, and glad to 

' r ° Proceedings 

make the best of their way home. As the after the 
number of their prisoners exceeded that of 
their whole army, they agreed to ransom them at once 
at the price each set upon himself, and dismissed them, 
on their promise to come to Bordeaux with the money 
before Christmas. A peace for two years was concluded 
with Charles Duke of Normandy, now Regent of France 
in his father's captivity, for the Prince had determined to 
detain King John and carry him to England. He paid 
2,000 marks to De Morbecq pending the decision of the 
dispute which still hotly raged as to the claim for the 
King's capture ; and he had also to distribute a sum ot 



176 Edward the Third. a.d. 

100,000 florins among the Gascon lords before their 
"loyalty M would permit " their sovereign lord and king'* 
to be taken out of the country; "for," as Froissart says, 
" great rewards and profits are all that a Gascon loves or 
desires." In those days a prisoner taken " to mercy " in 
battle became the absolute property and chattel of his 
captor ; but when the former was of exalted rank, and 
the latter a simple soldier of fortune, the king generally 
speculated on the ransom of the captive ; and secured 
his custody for his own purposes by paying over what 
seemed a small sum from the royal exchequer, but was 
in all probability a large one relatively to the means of 
the captor. Thus, as we have seen, Sir J. Coupland 
received an annuity of 600/. or 900 marks (the mark 
being worth 13^. 4*/.), for the surrender of his captive 
the King of Scotland, whereas King Edward demanded 
from the Scots 10,000 marks a year for ten years for his 
release ; and in the case of the French King, though it 
had cost Edward no more than 2,000 marks to secure 
from De Morbecq the possession of the prisoner, he did 
not scruple to demand for his ransom three million 
crowns of gold, a sum equivalent to 450,000/. sterling. 
(See Memorandum on Money, page xix.) 

After a stormy passage of eleven days, the Prince 

arrived with his royal prisoners at Sandwich, and rode 

thence to London. On their way they fell 

King John m j t j s sa iH with. King Edward, who was 

in England. & ' 

hunting in a forest through which they had 
to pass. Whether in levity or in simplicity, Edward in- 
vited the captive monarch to join him in the chase ; and 
on his declining this ill-timed offer, assured King John 
that he was quite at liberty to enjoy himself in hunting or 
"at the river," when and where he pleased, during his 
stay in England : then, sounding his horn, he spurred on 



1356. King John's Reception in England. 177 

after his hounds and was lost in the woods. This anec- 
dote is given on the authority of Villani, a contemporary 
historian, but a foreigner, and is itself antecedently im- 
probable ; for Edward, though far from being a perfect 
character, was rarely found wanting in the tact and deli- 
cacy which became a true knight, or (to translate into 
modern phrase) the instincts of a gentleman. 

Historians vie with each other in praising the modesty 
and courtesy of the Black Prince in his treatment of the 
captive King ; but it is difficult altogether to acquit him 
of affectation and self-consciousness on the occasion of 
their entry into the city of London, the account of which 
reads more like that of a Roman triumph than of an 
English welcome. A thousand citizens in the dress of 
their respective guilds, and headed by the Lord Mayor, 
received them at Southwark, and marched back with 
them in procession to the city. Arches were thrown 
across the streets ; trophies of arms and gold and silver 
plate were exhibited in the windows, and all, as it was 
said, in honour of the vanquished King ; who took his 
part in the pageant mounted on a white war-horse splen- 
didly caparisoned, while the Prince of Wales rode 
alongside of him "on a little black hackney." They 
stopped at the Savoy Palace, belonging to the Duke of 
Lancaster and standing on open ground on the bank of 
the Thames, for there the King and the young French 
prince were to reside. They were afterwards removed 
to Windsor, and thence to Hertford Castle, where King 
David of Scotland also was a prisoner. 



178 Edward the Third. a,d. 



FOURTH DECADE. 

A. D. 1357-1367, 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM THE BATTLE OF POITIERS TO THE DEATH OF 
KING JOHN. 

King John had remained in easy captivity with the 
Black Prince in the Abbey of St. Andrew's at Bordeaux 
till the spring of 1357, when they sailed for England. 
The Regent of France, Charles Duke of Normandy, now 
the Dauphin, had in the meantime again 
Condition summoned the States-General of the Langue 

after battle d'oil (see page 163) to meet at Paris to take 
of Poitiers. j nto consideration the state of the kingdom. 
It was not too soon. The exchequer was empty, the 
coinage debased, the army utterly demoralised, and re- 
spect for government and authority at an end. Multi- 
tudes of disbanded soldiers formed themselves into 
"Companies," living by the open plunder of those who 
were not strong enough to defend themselves ; and over 
all the country brooded the shadow of national defeat 
and shame. The nobles taken prisoners at Poitiers and 
released on parole turned to their estates to find the 
means of paying their ransoms, which equalled and in 
many cases exceeded, half the selling value of the land, 
had sale been possible. But the Jews and other wealthy 
foreign money-dealers who might have come forward as 
purchasers or mortgagees had all been banished from 
France ; and nothing was left for it but to make the mis- 



I 35^- Condition of France after battle of Poitiers. 179 

erable tenants yield up their little hoards, if they had any, 
or to compel them to beg, borrow, or steal the money for 
the release of their lords, whom they had always hated 
as selfish and oppressive masters, and now despised as 
cowards and traitors to their country. The serfs were 
ordered to find the money by a certain day, and, in case 
of default, they were put to the torture and their goods 
and chattels seized and carried off. It was the heartless 
jest in the mouths of the unworthy gentlemen of France: 
"facques Bonhomme has a good broad back — he must 
bear the burden." 'facques will not pull out his purse till 
you beat him, but facques will pull out his purse soon 
enough when you do." The unfortunate peasantry were 
hunted down like vermin and put to cruel deaths. All 
who escaped fell into the clutches of the "Companies," 
who stripped naked those to whom the lords had left a 
shirt, tormented and mutilated young children as well as 
men and women, and robbed the last of all that was left 
them when money, clothing, and household goods were 
gone. Multitudes of these unhappy beings took refuge 
at night time, huddled together with their families and 
their flocks and all that they could save, on the islands 
in the Loire, or on rafts moored out of reach of the 
banks of the river. Others dug ditches round their 
villages, and placed sentinels in the church towers to 
give the alarm on the appearance of an armed man. 
But all these precautions only whetted the excitement of 
the chase, and the eagerness of the man-hunters to get 
at their prey. 

These "Companies," though they fought and plun- 
dered on their own account, brought the English into 
great odium and discredit. One of them which infested 
the district between the Seine and the Loire, was com- 
manded by a Welshman ; another by an Englishman, 



i8o Edward the Third. a.d. 

Sir Robert Knolles, who afterwards, as will be seen, dis- 
tinguished himself in legitimate warfare. A third was 
commanded by Arnold de Cervolles, a liegeman of King 
Edward and one of the heroes of Poitiers, of whom we 
shall hear again. He w r as surnamed the "Archpriest," on 
account of a benefice which he held, but his wild and 
undutiful doings in the neighbourhood of Avignon sadly- 
disturbed the mind of the Pontiff at the head of the 
Church. Meanwhile Charles, the regent, and the other 
royal and noble fugitives of Poitiers, so far from bowing 
their heads in sympathy with the miseries of their coun- 
try, were vying with each other in ostentatious luxury 
and extravagance under the indignant eyes of Paris. 
Fresh taxes were daily imposed, and the coinage debased, 
to the extent of Coo per cent. 

The States-General met at the end of 1 3 56, and went 
to work in the spirit of sobered and earnest, but not hope- 
less, men. Rejecting all the dishonoured scions of 
royalty, they chose Charles of Blois as their 
oftheStaSs- nominal president ; but the real leader of the 

General. assembly was Etienne Marcel, the Provost 

[a. d. 1356.] J ' 

of the Merchants. 

The defenceless state of Paris was the first anxiety, 

and immediate steps were taken, under the auspices of 

Marcel, to fortify the town, and train the citizens to the 

use of arms. Resolutions were unanimously passed that 

the King's ministers should be replaced by a council to 

be chosen by the States, and that the King of Navarre 

should, " for the good of the kingdom," be released from 

captivity. The Dauphin had no intention of acquiescing 

in these demands. He showed considerable address in 

persuading the States to adjourn before matters came to 

a crisis, and summoned the Parliament of the Langue 

d'oc (the Southern Provinces), which indeed promised a 



1356. Meetifig of the States- General. 181 

liberal subsidy for the defence of the country, but insisted 
no less on a reform in the administration. They claimed 
to vest the right of expending the moneys raised by 
taxation in commissioners appointed by themselves, — to 
assemble and dissolve when they thought proper, and to 
withhold supplies altogether if the coinage were again 
tampered with. Lastly, they prohibited all persons, of 
what degree soever, from wearing silver ornaments, 
pearls, and rich furs, and the minstrels and jongleurs 
from exercising their gay callings, for the space of twelve 
months, while the country was in mourning and her king 
a captive in a foreign land. 

Meanwhile, Philip of Navarre, indignant at the pro- 
longed detention of his brother, took up his headquarters 
at Evreux, and gathering around him the partisans of 
Navarre, threatened the capital with an attack from with- 
out, while an insurrection was ripening within the walls 
of Paris, and exasperated citizens paraded the streets in 
arms. It was under these circumstances that the States 
again assembled. They repeated their former demands 
in a more peremptory tone, and attempted to place the 
government as it were in commission, by nominating a 
council of thirty-six, who became virtually the executive. 
But Charles, whom his countrymen called " the Wise " — 
though in England the epithet would probably have 
taken a different turn — iortifled by orders from the King 
his father forbidding all men to obey the decrees of the 
States, would probably have contrived to hold his own 
in defiance of the assembly, had not the revolution sud- 
denly taken a new form, with which his timid and crafty 
genius was less competent to deal. Marcel, 
who up to this time had been working man- 
fully and loyally in the interest of the government and 
the country, convinced at length that all attempts to in- 



1 82 Edward the Third. a.d. 

duce or compel the Dauphin to act honestly would be 
unavailing, determined, in an evil hour, to 

Marcel has ° 

recourse to baptize the cause of the people in blood. He 
and his associates had adopted a red and 
blue striped cap as the badge of their fraternity, and on 
a certain morning the tocsin sounded from the towers of 
Notre Dame, and the streets surrounding the Louvre, 
where the Dauphin had entrenched himself, were soon 
densely filled with a fluctuating sea of parti-coloured 
caps. Marcel entered the palace unopposed at the head 
of 3,000 men (for Charles gave himself out as the friend 
of the people), and, confronting the Duke, accused him 
of taking no part in the defence of the country. The 
Duke retorted bitterly that to defend the country was the 
business of those who received its revenues. More angry 
words followed, and at length Marcel, turning to the 
striped caps who had entered with him, cried out, " Do 
that for which you came." 

Two French marshals, the confidential advisers of the 
Duke, were seized and massacred upon the spot, and he 
himself was only too glad to escape through 
the French the throng under Marcel's protection, in the 
Marshals. disguise of a revolutionist with a parti-col- 

oured " bonnet" on his head. But Marcel, who ought to 
have known that a revolution begun with blood could 
not be carried on with rose-water, now fell into the fatal 
error of allowing the Duke, who thirsted for revenge, to 
leave Paris and preside at the assembly of the Southern 
States. Charles found them exasperated at the assassina- 
tion of the marshals, and quite ready to support him in 
retaliating upon its authors. News reached Marcel that 
the Duke was marching upon Paris. He first attempted 
in a noble and eloquent letter, which has been preserved 
to dissuade him from such a course ; but, finding his re- 



1 35 8. The "Jacquerie ." 183 

monstrances unavailing, he seized upon the Louvre and 
expelled the royal garrison, pulled down the houses built 
against the ramparts, threw chains across the river, and 
prepared to stand a siege. 

But a new and more formidable danger now arose, in 
presence of which both factions stood aghast. The 
"Jacquerie" had begun. This outbreak, ex- 
hibiting as it were, in a typical form, trie The "jac- 

J r quene. 

dangers of oppression pushed to extremes, 
and the excesses of which a mob will be guilty " when they 
are so unfortunate as to become for a time their own 
masters," — has been used to point the moral of many a 
diatribe ; now against the tyranny alleged to be inherent 
in aristocracies, now against the savage ferocity and the 
destructive instincts of the "masses" when not kept 
under habitual and watchful repression. But, in truth, 
the movement was of so exceptional a character that it 
possesses for us little more than a historical interest, for 
it is almost inconceivable that such a combinatien of cir- 
cumstances could exist in the Europe of our day. The 
Jacquerie, doubtless, had some points of resemblance, 
but very many of dissimilarity, with the great French 
revolution of the eighteenth century. It was, like that, a 
national uprising against the tyranny and selfishness of 
the aristocracy, but it differed from it in being a blind 
outbreak of fury, without political objects, without intel- 
ligent leaders, and without permanent results. It had 
about it nothing of the religious exaltation of the san- 
guinary Pastoureaux, who, fifty years before, swarmed 
over France, and offered up all Jews and heretics as a 
holocaust to God. The Jacquerie had not like them, 
any expectation of the advent of the reign of Justice; they 
had not even a concerted scheme of emancipating them- 
selves. The movement was, as has been well observed, 



1 84 Edward the Third. a.d. 

"one of those sympathetic acts which put on the appear- 
ance of organized combination." It exhibited the specta- 
cle of a whole population suddenly possessed with the 
same devil of bloodthirstiness as a Javanese fanatic when 
ru?i?ii7ig a muck. It is, perhaps, not very difficult to ac- 
count for the peculiar ferocity of these insurrections upon 
French soil. The spirit of English legislation, even at a 
time when all English legislators belonged to the aristo- 
cratic class was marked by an especial tenderness and 
consideration for the poor ; and however much the Eng- 
lish nobles may have oppressed their serfs by tallage, 
forced labor, and personal violence, they do not seem at 
any time to have habitually insulted and derided their 
inferiors in station with the class pride and brutal scorn 
which characterized the French nobility. 

A few peasants in the neighbourhood of Clermont, 
armed with knives and bludgeons, broke into a chateau, 
set it on fire, and murdered the inmates. Then, like a 
wild beast that has tasted blood, the mob, daily growing 
in numbers and in ferocity, swarmed round, broke into 
and gutted castle after castle, from the battlements and 
loopholed windows of which the lords had looked down 
in indifference or derision, while the defenceless cottages 
of their dependants were sacked and pillaged by the 
"Companies." "Death to the gentlemen" was the 
watchword of this delirious revolt, which spread like 
wildfire through France, for its cry for vengeance found 
an echo in the heart of every peasant in the land. Their 
numbers soon swelled to 100,000 men, and Marcel 
thought it prudent to seem to make common cause with 
them to some extent, in the hope of mitigating or re- 
straining their ferocity. 

The first check which the outbreak met with was at 
Meaux. The Dauphin had seized upon this city in order 



1358. Relief of Meaux. 185 

to cut off the supplies of the Seine from Paris, and had 
connected and strengthened the buildings en- 
closing the market place, which became ?i eliefof 

*> r ' Meaux. 

thereby one huge fortress. Thither his Duch- 
ess had fled for safety, and, with her, 300 of the 
noblest ladies of France. Now the royal garrison at 
Meaux had oppressed the citizens till they could no 
longer bear their insolence and exactions ; and, in de- 
spair of relief from any other quarter, the inhabitants 
called in the Jacques to their aid ; and admitted within 
the city some 10,000 half-armed, half-starved and half- 
maddened ruffians, along with a troop of Parisians des- 
patched with the best intentions, but with very doubtful 
wisdom, by Marcel. The situation of the poor ladies 
was now critical in the extreme. They had nothing to 
hope for from the mercy of their assailants, and the gar- 
rison was too weak to hold out long against such over- 
whelming numbers. But help came from an unexpected 
quarter. The Captal de Buch, and Gaston de Foix, a 
gallant knight of Gascony, surnamed " Phoebus M from 
his youthful beauty, were returning with 100 lances from 
a crusade against the Pagans in Prussia, (see page 50), 
and learned, in passing through Chalons, that an adven- 
ture lay ready to their hands ; an adventure which com- 
bined every element of attractiveness to knightly spirits 
— a suzerain's authority outraged ; fair ladies in danger ; 
plebeian insolence to be avenged ; and desperate odds 
against the avengers. They rode, scarce drawing rein, 
to Meaux, fought their way to the entrance of the market 
place, were admitted through its gates, and, forming 
within, again threw them open and poured forth, an iron 
stream, into the midst of the half-defenceless rioters, and 
slaughtered them like sheep. The miserable wretches 
fought desperately for their lives, but a few only, in the 



1 86 Edward the Third. a.d. 

outskirts, escaped the swords and spears of the men-at- 
arms. 

At about the same time a sanguinary massacre of the 
Jacques took place in Normandy, under the orders of the 
King of Navarre, and the fugitives from the slaughter 
carried the news into all parts of the country. Taking 
advantage of the panic caused by these reverses, the 
gentry plucked up courage, and sallying forth with their 
armed retainers from the towns in which they had found 
refuge, assumed the offensive in their turn ; and inflicted 
such a murderous retaliation on the unfortunate peas- 
antry, now awakening, dizzy and dispirited, after their 
debauch of blood, that, to use the words of an old French 
chronicler, " it needed not the English to destroy the 
country, for in truth the English, enemies of the king- 
dom, could not have done what the nobles did." 

The result of the whole was that the peasantry of 
France sunk down into mere abject servitude, misery, 
and despair. But this fearful outbreak, so disastrous to 
France, scarcely affected, after the first moment, the rela- 
tions of the leaders of political parties, whose intrigues went 
on unchecked through the midst of the national agony. 

We left the Dauphin advancing on Paris with an army 
from the south, and Provost Marcel in possession of the 
city and fortifying it against impending siege. The recent 
measures of the latter, whether well intentioned or not, 
had unfortunately identified him with the foes of order. 
Six months before this date, backed by the 
trigues with express opinion of the States-General, he 
Charles the h a( } en tered the royal prison of the Louvre 
and released the King of Navarre. The 
}iberated sovereign had been received with acclamations 
by the people, to whom he declared that, if he chose to 
stand upon his rights, he could show a claim to the 



1358. Marcel and the King of Navarre. 187 

throne of France better than that of King Edward of 
England (page 75). At that time, however, it did not 
suit Marcel's purpose to throw down the gauntlet to the 
regent representative of the reigning dynasty ; but now, 
seeing that he had gone too far to retreat, he took a step 
fatal to his own influence and the cause which he had at 
heart, by calling in, and appointing "Captain-General 
of Paris," as a step to a still higher dignity, the King of 
Navarre, whose recent massacre of the Jacques had 
alienated from him the sympathies of the popular party ; 
while at the same time the misguided Provost invoked 
the aid of the "Companies," justly regarded as the 
scourge of France and the common enemies of mankind. 
The King of Navarre, as was to have been expected, 
betrayed his associate's intentions, and made an offer to 
the Dauphin to abandon Paris to its fate, and to give up 
Marcel and his friends to vengeance. The unpopular- 
ity of that ill-advised but able and single-minded pa- 
triot, whose sole object throughout seems to have been 
to deliver his countrymen from bad government and op- 
pression, was completed by an unfortunate accident. A 
party of brigands in Marcel's pay, returning to Paris, had 
set fire to a homestead not far distant from the Porte 
St. Martin. The angry citizens saw the conflagration 
from the walls of Paris, and as soon as the troops entered 
the gates, fell upon and massacred them, and seized the 
captain of the band, who had been dining at the Hotel 
de Nesle, along with Charles of Navarre. 

That King then withdrew to St. Denys, where the 
number of his forces and his hostile attitude so alarmed 
the citizens of Paris that they compelled Marcel to write 
to the Dauphin entreating him to enter Paris and protect 
them against the Navarrese. That astute Prince, how- 
ever, well knowing that discord within the city was his 



1 88 Edward the Third. a.d. 

best ally answered that he would never set foot in Paris 
as long as the murderer of the marshals was alive. And 
now Marcel, abandoned by all, and with the ground 
trembling under his feet, determined on the desperate 
and treasonous step of introducing the King of Navarre, 
at the head of a body of troops, into Paris by night, and 
proclaiming him King of France. The plot was discov- 
ered ; and when Marcel rode up to the gates to give 
admittance to the Navarrese, the royalist governor of 
that quarter of the city mounted his horse, and shout- 
ing " Montjoye St. Denys, for the King and 
Marcei° f ^ e Duke '" galloped round to raise the 

people. A throng gathered about, and 
there arose a fierce and angry strife of tongues, in the 
heat of which the unhappy Marcel was struck down 
and murdered, with the fatal evidence of guilt, the keys 
of the city, in his hand. 

A period of miserable anarchy followed. The Dau- 
phin and the King of Navarre both took bands of the 
"Companies" into their pay and let them loose upon 
each other and upon the country, which lay for the most 
part deserted and untilled, and disfigured with the black- 
ened ruins of homesteads, castles, and churches. Writ- 
ing a short time after these events, the poet Petrarch thus 
describes the state of things which he witnessed in 
France : — " I could not believe that this was the same 
kingdom which I had once seen so rich and flourishing. 
Nothing presented itself to the eyes but a fearful soli- 
tude, an extreme poverty, land uncultivated, houses in 
ruins." 

But desperate as was the condition of the country, and 
low as France had fallen, the Dauphin and the States 
wisely, and with one voice, rejected a treaty of peace 
signed by King John in 1359. For in this he had agreed 



1359- Edward* s invasion of France. 189 

to cede to England nearly the whole of the western sea- 
board of France, with its ports and islands, and an in- 
land sweep of provinces which would have equalled if not 
surpassed in extent the famous territorial dower brought 
to Henry II. by Eleanor of Aquitaine 

Upon the indignant refusal of the Government to con- 
firm this treaty, King Edward III. made immediate 
preparations for an invasion of France on a „ 3 

f i- i r ii 1 • r Edward s 

scale exceeding that 01 all his former expe- invasion of 
ditions. A hundred thousand men sailed 
from Sandwich "between daybreak and sunrise" on Oc- 
tober 28, and before nightfall entered the 
harbour of Calais. They had to carry a great 
part of their supplies with them, for France was known to 
be almost a desert, no tillage having been attempted for 
three years. Eight thousand cars, each drawn by four 
horses, conveyed their stores ; mills and ovens for mak- 
ing bread ; portable forges and leather fishing coracles 
for the supply of the army with fish on fast days. Thirty 
mounted falconers accompanied the march ; thirty couple 
of greyhounds ; thirty of strong lurchers for the greater 
game. The enumeration of these items almost describes 
by anticipation the character of this expedition : the 
English King marched along at his ease, hunting and 
hawking ; the Dauphin shut himself up in Paris, leaving 
the other cities to defend themselves as best they might. 
But Edward, averse to fighting, passed by the fortified 
towns and left them unmolested, as the Black Prince had 
done in his last campaign, and marched straight upon 
Rheims, in order to be crowned King of France in the 
royal city. Rheims was too strong to be taken by assault, 
so he sat down before it to a winter siege, his officers and 
troops occupying the abbeys and villages in the neigh- 
bourhood. But the season was one of the worst on record. 



190 Edward the Third. a.d. 

Before Christmas the provisions, which had to come from 
Hainault and the Cambresis, began to fall short, and, as 
the Dauphin showed no signs of being tempted out of 

Paris, Edward raised the siege of Rheims 

in January and marched upon the capital 
itself. He took up his quarters at Chatillon, and Sir W. 
Manny skirmished up to the walls of Paris. The French 
regent adhered to his policy of inaction, only burning 
the suburbs to prevent their affording protection to the 
invaders. He forbade his soldiers to pass the barriers, 
and rejected all Edward's overtures for peace, though 
urged to accept them by his own counsellors ; and the 
English King determined to withdraw into Brittany to 
recruit his army, which had suffered much by the winter 
campaign, intending to return to the siege of Paris in the 
autumn. 

He was already on his way, when, at the instance of 
Pope Innocent VI., the most powerful, prudent, and 
possibly disinterested, of the Avignonese pontiffs, the 
Dauphin at last gave way, and consented to sue for peace. 
The ambassadors from the French court overtook King 
Edward at Chartres. His retreat had been hasty and 
calamitous, and he had left his line of march strewn with 
the corpses of famished soldiers and 6,000 horses dead 
of starvation. Lengthened discussions took place, 
which would in all probability, like so many previous 
negotiations, have led to no conclusion, had it not been 
for the occurrence of a thunder-storm, so sudden, terrific, 
and destructive, that the superstitious feeling of the time 
attributed it to a direct interposition of Divine power to 

put a stop to the sufferings of the people. It 
Bretienf ^ a PP ar ently awaken the English King to 

a sense of the horrors caused by his ambition. 
A peace, one of the most important in mediaeval his- 



FRANCE AFTER THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI 




Houndari/ of 



"English Territory as settled by ) 

the Treaty ef SreUgni 1360 I Red 



1360. Peace of Bretigni. 191 

tory, was signed at Bretigni, near Chartres, on May 
8, 1360. By this King Edward agreed to renounce for- 
mally and for ever, at a certain time and place, all claim 
to the throne of France, and to the ancient possessions 
of the Plantagenets north of the Loire and its tributaries 
— Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Normandy — on condi- 
tion of a similar renunciation, on the part of the French 
King, of all right, title, overlordship, or suzerainty over 
the rest of the inheritance of Queen Eleanor, from the 
Loire to the Pyrenees, a large portion of which had been 
wrested from England by Philip Augustus in the reign of 
King John. Both kings were to give up their claims to 
the homage of Flanders and Brittany, and De Montfort 
and Charles of Blois, the competitors for the duchy, 
were to fight out their quarrel, assisted or not by England 
or France, without prejudice to the treaty. There were 
other complications arising out of previous engagements 
on each side ; but the Pope conveniently stepped in, and 
absolved both the high contracting parties from " any 
oaths or obligations which were contrary to the articles 
of peace." King John was to be ransomed for 3,000,000 
crowns of gold ; 600,000 crowns were to be paid before 
he passed out of the gates of Calais, and 400,000 more 
in each subsequent year. Two months later the captive 
King was escorted to Calais by the Black Prince and the 
Duke of Lancaster, and there the treaty was solemnly 
ratified, both kings kneeling before the altar, taking into 
their hands the consecrated Host, and swearing to the 
faithful observance of their engagement on the " body of 
Christ." 

Such was the condition of France that this humiliating 
treaty was welcomed by the people ; but in the then ex- 
hausted state of the national finances and the deprecia- 
tion of the coinage, there seemed little or no probability 



192 Edward the Third. a.d. 

of the first instalment of the ransom being paid. At this 
_ . . juncture, however, a demand was made for 

King John s J 

ransom the hand of King John s youngest daughter, 

pai ' Isabel, by the ambitious head of the great 

and wealthy house of the Vesconti ; who, in the Pope's 
absence, united in themselves the civil and spiritual 
supremacy in the north of Italy, and subsequently pur- 
chased the title of Dukes of Milan from Wenceslaus, 
King of the Romans. He offered, upon the marriage of 
that princess to his son and heir, John Galeazzo, to pay 
the 600,000 crowns demanded by England as the first in- 
stalment of the ransom of King John ; and this undigni- 
fied and mercenary contract being agreed to, with some 
reluctance by the French, the marriage took place, and 
the money was paid. Hostages were given for the re- 
mainder of the ransom — the Duke of Orleans, the Dukes 
of Berri and Anjou, second and third sons of the King, 
together with others of the royal family, and forty citizens 
of the principal towns in France. The ransomed King 
was everywhere received "greatly and nobly;" and 
when he arrived at Paris "beautiful gifts and rich pres- 
ents " were bestowed upon him, and "he was waited 
upon and feasted by all the chief prelates and barons of 
the kingdom." 

But though the ceded provinces were, with many a 
heartburning and threat of rebellion, handed over to the 
nominal sovereignty of England, the "renunciations'* 
under the treaty were never made ; and this unfortu- 
nate omission furnished both Charles V. of France and 
Henry V. of England with a formal justification for re- 
viving a war which brought a succession of disasters to 
both kingdoms. 

The events which took place in France between this 
date and the fresh outbreak of war in 1369 may be briefly 






1362. The Conditio?i of France. 193 

dismissed. Reviving prosperity was checked by the 
fact that the country had been deliberately portioned out 
among themselves by organized bands of freebooters. 
The great war had attracted needy adventurers from all 
parts of Europe, and as they had nothing to live by but 
their swords, when the unwelcome peace was proclaimed 
they kept possession of the fortresses which they occu- 
pied in defiance of the Kings of England and France. 
A "cloud" of these brigands, of mixed race, spread 
themselves over the eastern provinces. They called 
themselves the Tardvemcs, or late comers, and set them- 
selves diligently to\vork in order to make up for lost time. 
The " Great Company M pillaged the country round 
Avignon, and were advancing upon the city when the 
Duke of Bourbon and De Cervolles, "the Archpriest, " 
were ordered from Paris to attack and disperse them. 
The Duke, however, fell into a snare, and 
was surrounded and slain, with vast num- 
bers of the flower of the royal troops. The brigands 
then marched to Avignon ; but the Pope bethought him- 
self of the happy expedient of hiring them out to the 
Marquis of Montserrat, who was warring with the Lords 
of Milan. It will be seen shortly how the Dauphin 
Charles managed to dispose of a great part of the re- 
mainder of these embarrassing auxiliaries. 
•Meanwhile, the three " Lords of the Fleur-de-Lys," the 
Dukes of Orleans, Berri and Anjou, growing weary of 
their exile in England, besought King Ed- 
ward to allow them, under certain conditions 
to repair to Calais, and thence to make excursions as they 
pleased into the country, on their word of honour to re- 
turn before sunset on the fourth day. The Duke of An- 
jou took advantage of his liberty for four days, to break 
his parole, and never went back to Calais. King Edward 

o 



194 Edward the Third. a.d. 

wrote a letter urging him to return, "for that by his 
treachery he had tarnished the honour of himself and all 
his lineage." King John too was so deeply affected by a 
breach of faith in which he thought his own honour in- 
volved, that, in spite of the remonstrances of his nobles, 
he determined to yield himself back into captivity ; but 
so far was the Dauphin from sharing his father's feel- 
ings that he shortly afterwards appointed his perjured 

brother his lieutenant-general in Languedoc. 
Return and King John returned, with his other kinsmen, 
Kin h ? f hn t0 England, but returned only to die, three 

months, after his landing at the Savoy Palace. 
He was, however, received in London with all the respect 
due to a monarch who prized his honour above his free- 
dom, and the King and the nation vied with each other 
in their endeavours to make his captivity pass lightly. 
Among the hospitalities which he received, one is men- 
tioned which seems a remarkable evidence of the grow- 
ing political and social importance of trade. The Lord 
Mayor of London, Sir Henry Picard, a wine merchant of 
Gascony, entertained the French King and his sons, 
together with the Kings of England, Scotland and Den- 
mark, "in his house in the Vintry, near St. Martin's 
Church, and kept his hall in the evening against all 
comers who were willing to play at dice or hazard;" 
while "his lady Margaret kept her chamber for the enter- 
tainment of the princesses and ladies " of the Court. 



1362. Marriage of Prince of Wales. 195 



FOURTH DECADE.— A. D. 1357-1367. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PRINCE OF WALES IN AQUITAINE AND IN SPAIN. 

In i 362 the Prince of Wales was married to his cousin 
the Fair Maid of Kent, becoming thus the third husband 
of that beautiful princess ; and she, in 1364, 
bore him a son, Edward, surnamed of An- 
gouleme, who died at the age of seven years ; and 
in 1366, a second son, afterwards King Richard II. 
Shortly after his marriage Prince Edward was created 
"duke'' of the reconstituted English dominion of Aqui- 
taine — his father having wisely determined to keep the 
absolute sovereignty of the territory in his own hands, 
and for this government he started the following spring. 
He found Charles the Dauphin writhing under the treaty 
of Bretigni, and ever on the watch for op- 
portunities for fomenting discord among the wales Duke 
new subjects of the Prince. The French re- of A Q ui - 

... . , , taine. 

gent still felt unequal to an open rupture, 
and was waiting upon circumstances, with a foresight 
and patience which won him his surname of "the Wise," 
and was amply justified by the ultimate result, so disas- 
trous to England and so fortunate for France. While he 
was pursuing this policy of "masterly inaction," he had 
singled out a man of remarkable military capacity, 
named Bertrand Duguesclin, to carry on his wars with 
the King of Navarre ; who was now virtually in posses- 
sion of Normandy, though he had left the lieutenancy of 



196 Edward the Third. a.u. 

it to his brother Philip, and withdrawn to his own Span- 
ish dominions. Philip of Navarre died in 1363, and 
Duguesclin marched with his free companions into 
Normandy. He was a man of low associations, and 
rough in looks and manners, but possessing the sover- 
eign faculty of command. He warred after his own fash- 
ion, caring more for victory than the rules of war or the 
punctilios of chivalry, and the success of his tactics con- 
tributed not a little to the decline of that brilliant but ar- 
tificial condition of society. He got possession of many 
strong places held for the King of Navarre, and gained 
a crushing victory at Cocherel over the Captal de Buch, 
whom that sovereign had appointed his lieutenant in 

Normandy on his brother Philip's death — 
AD I3 4 ' and sent him a prisoner to Paris. During 

his captivity there the Captal had secret orders from the 
King to arrange a peace with the Government of France; 
and this he accomplished on advantageous terms for his 
master ; who, after his base and treacherous conduct all 
round thereby recovered the whole of the territory that he 
had lost in Evreux. 

In Brittany the old quarrel still raged on, but it was on 
the eve of extinction at last. John de Montfort had laid 

siege to Auray, and begged for help from 
of Affairs in the Prince of Wales, who sent the brave old 

John of Chandos and Sir Robert Knolles to 
his assistance. Charles of Blois sought aid from Charles 
the Wise, now King of France, who sent Duguesclin to 
reinforce him. A decisive battle was fought under the 
walls of Auray, in which Duguesclin was made a pris- 
oner, and Charles of Blois unhappily, or happily, slain. 

A treaty of peace was signed by his widow, 

the heroic Jeanne of Penthievre, by which 
that earldom was secured to her and her heirs forever, 






1365. Pedro the Cruel. 197 

and John de Montfort was left in undisputed possession 
of the Duchy of Brittany. 

A new set of actors now enter upon the scene. 

The table of the kings of Castile shows how its reign- 
ing sovereign, Pedro the Cruel, ascended the throne on 
the death of his father, Alphonso XI, in 
1350. He was crowned at the age of six- The Spanish 

"** t ° Campaign of 

teen, and when eighteen years old was the Prince 

of Wales 

married to Blanch of Bourbon, youngest 
sister of Jeanne, the wife of Charles the Dauphin of 
France ; but the sympathies of the reigning French dy- 
nasty leaned, as will be remembered to the De la Cerdas, 
the elder branch of the family of Alphonso X. Pedro 
inaugurated the reign, like a king of Dahomey or Ashan- 
tee, with a batch of assassinations ; the first of his vic- 
tims being Leonora de Guzman, the mother of his ille- 
gitimate brother Henry of Trastamare. Each succeed- 
ing year was marked by cruel and vindictive executions ; 
the victims being the most eminent of the Spanish nobles, 
three of his own half-brothers, and lastly the unhappy 
Bourbon princess whom he had made his wife. Charles 
of France deeply resented the murder of his kinswoman, 
and his pride was stung by the fact of Pedro's declaring 
when he married the sister-in-law of the Dauphin, he 
had a wife living, Maria de Padilla, to whom, in fact, he 
returned two days after that marriage. But Charles had 
another reason for regarding Pedro as an enemy ; he 
was the ally of England. Friendly relations had long 
subsisted between the Plantagenets and the family of 
Pedro. Eleanor of Castile had been the beloved and 
devoted wife of Edward I.; Joan, daughter of Edward 
III., had been affianced to Pedro himself when cut off 
by the plague in 1348, and a treaty offensive and defen- 
sive had been made between the two sovereigns in 1362. 



198 Edward the Third. a.d. 

King Charles saw that he could strike a blow at Eng- 
land through Don Pedro, without infringing the treaty of 
Bretigni. But the King of Castile had a more dangerous 
enemy in the Pope, whose wrath he had incurred by op- 
pressing the Church, and holding amicable communica- 
tions with the Moorish King of Granada. On his refusal 
to appear before the Papal Court to answer these charges, 
Urban V. severely, and in all probability conscientiously, 
orthodox, — legitimatised his half-brother Henry of Tras- 
tamare, and encouraged him to avenge his mother's 
assassination and aspire to the throne of Castile. Urban 
joined with the King of France in hiring the "Com- 
panies" to support the claims of Henry by arms, and in 
ransoming Duguesclin for 100,000 francs, in order to 
place him at their head. Duguesclin found little difficulty 
in engaging the services of the " Companies," though he 
thought it necessary to represent to them that the expe- 
dition was directed against the infidels in the south of 
Spain ; " if, however, they should come across Don Pe- 
dro on their way, they would not fail to harass and anger 
him." The next step was to remove the ban of ex- 
communication which the Pope had laid upon the "Com- 
panies," and to procure absolution for them at his hands. 
Urban urged that an absolution was always paid for ; if 
he granted this, they had no claim upon the 200,000 
florins which he on his part had engaged to pay them. 
Duguesclin only laughed at this pretext, and repeated 
his demand ; but when he found that the Pope was 
raising the money by taxes imposed upon theAvignonese, 
he refused to receive a coin unless the full tale was paid 
out of the Papal treasury. Among the leaders of the 
allied invaders were Calverly, Knolles, and many other 
English and Gascons owing fealty to King Edward, who 
wrote them a peremptory warning to desist from the 



1366. Defeat of Don Pedro. 199 

undertaking, and "not to take up arms against the noble 
prince the King of Spain." But they were already be- 
yond the Pyrenees. At Barcelona they 
were joined by Henry of Trastamare, and a 
message was sent from thence to King Pedro " that they 
were coming, and intended to open the roads and passes 
of his kingdom to the pilgrims of God, who, with great 
devotion, had undertaken to enter the kingdom of Gran- 
ada to avenge the sufferings of our Lord, destroy the 
infidels, and exalt the true faith." Don Pedro laughed, 
as well he might, at their transparent hypocrisy, and sent 
back word that the King of Castile would have nothing 
to do with such a set of vagabonds. But he had miscal- 
culated his resources, underrated the vehemence of the 
hatred which his cruelties had provoked. One Spanish 
lord, and one only joined his standard — Fernando de 
Castro, the brother of the hapless Inez, Queen of Por- 
tugal, over whose fate the poet Camoens dropped many a 
M melodious tear "in after days. 

The revolution was bloodless, and Henry of Tras- 
tamare found himself King of Castile without striking a 
blow, and in fact embarrassed by the strength of his 
army, whom he had some difficulty in persuading to 
return, without fighting anybody, to France. Pedro, glad 
to escape with his life, took refuge in Seville, and thence 
made his way through Portugal to the Court of the 
Prince of Wales at Bordeaux, and threw himself on his 
protection. His two daughters, Constance and Isabel, 
accompanied him, and the exiles seem to have exercised 
a strange fascination over the Prince. He refused to 
listen to the advice of his counsellors, who represented 
to him that the banished King was a cruel and a wicked 
tyrant, whose calamities were the manifest punishment 
of God to chastise him, and give an example to other 



200 Edward the Third. A.D, 

kings. In the eyes of chivalry a dethroned monarcK, 
though guilty of every crime, and Justly detested by hL 
subjects, was as legitimate an object for sympathy ana 
assistance as a prisoner in Paynim captivity or a maiden 
in danger of violence. The question was, however, re- 
ferred to England, where King Edward and his Council 
took the same view as the Black Prince, and decided 
that he should support the claims of his suppliant with 
all the forces at his command. As for the payment of 
the war expenses, Pedro made large promises. He had, 
he said, great treasures hidden away in Castile, and 
covenanted to pay a sum of 600,000 florins before next 
Midsummer. John of Chandos and other experienced 
advisers of the Prince, anticipating treachery, but seeing 
that their master's mind was already made up, prevailed 
on him to coin his gold and silver plate into money, and 
to beg his father to send him the next instalment of the 
ransom of King John. The Prince unfortunately made 
himself personally responsible for the payment of the 
expenses of the war, relying on the good faith of Don 
Pedro, who left his two daughters, Constance and Isabel, 
as hostages with the English Court. 

The King of Navarre had already signed an agree- 
ment with the new King of Castile, by which he under- 
took to prevent the invading forces from entering Spain 
through his dominions. This presented a formidable 
obstacle, for such was the difficulty of the passes over 
the Pyrenees that a handful of resolute men could have 
held them against a host; and the only other way by 
which an army could enter Spain lay through the territo- 
ries of the King of Aragon, the firm ally of Henry of 
Trastamare. But the King of Navarre, with characteristic 
falseness and venality, meeting the Parliament of Aqui- 
taine within a short time after his engagement with 



1367- The Black Prince crosses the Pyrenees, 201 

Henry, then and there solemnly covenanted to allow the 
troops of the Black Prince to cross unopposed, in con- 
sideration of the payment of 250,000 gold florins and the 
cession of the province of Guipuzcoa. The " Companies," 
who had previously joined the standard of Henry 
of Trastamare, were, for the most part, liegemen as 
well as old soldiers of the Black Prince; and, fondly 
remembering their former fellowship in honourable and 
victorious arms, needed little more than a hint from him 
to change sides and join the invading forces. A strong 
reinforcement arrived from England under John of 
Gaunt, now Duke of Lancaster in right of his wife, for 
he had married Blanch, daughter and heiress of the 
great Duke, and her father had fallen a victim to the 
second outbreak of the Plague in 1361. 

News now reached the English camp that Charles the 
Bad was again making overtures to Henry. To trust 
him further was hopeless, so the Prince ordered two 
frontier towns of Navarre to be occupied with English 
troops, and compelled the King himself to accompany 
the army through the passes of the Pyrenees. They 
threaded the Pass of Roncesvalles, where 

A.D. I367. 

neither " Charlemagne" nor " all his peerage 
fell," as Milton has it, but where his rear-guard was 
cut off by the Basques and Gascons. The Prince's army 
encountered no human opposition, but were nearly 
overwhelmed by a terrible snow-storm in the pass. At 
length, however, they arrived with little loss on the 
borders of Castile, though they had been deprived of 
the guidance of the King of Navarre ; who was taken 
prisoner under circumstances giving rise to more than a 
suspicion that an understanding existed between himself 
and his captors. Here a messenger met them from 
Henry of Trastamare, with a letter saying that "he had 



202 Edward the Third. a.d. 

no doubt that the Prince had come to fight a battle with 
him," and inquiring "at what place he meant to enter 
Castile, that he might be there to receive him." " Truly," 
said the Prince, on reading the letter, " this bastard 
Henry is a valiant knight, of great prowess." He then 
advanced to, and occupied Salvatierra, where Pedro 
could hardly be withheld from slaughtering the garrison. 
In the meantime Henry, whose herald had been allowed 
to return, — uncertain as to the movements of the in- 
vaders, and waiting for the arrival of Duguesclin and 
his company, sent out his brother Tello with 6,000 men 
to reconnoitre, and attempt a surprise of the English. 
Tello fell in with three several detachments of the 
Prince's army, and, after putting them one after another 
fairly to the rout, returned in safety to his quarters. 
The camp of Henry was wild with exultation, and the 
troops clamoured to be led against the enemy, but a 
tried and valiant marshal ventured to warn his master 
not to trust too blindly to the superiority of numbers, or 
their first success over the Prince's troops, "for," said he, 
" they are the flower of all the chivalry of the world, and 
will die sooner than yield. Be led by me, and stop the 
passes against their supplies, and you will not have 
to strike a blow, for they will perish by cold and 
hunger." 

But the Black Prince was once more destined to owe 
salvation and victory to the impatient folly of his ene- 
mies in not leaving him to starve. He advanced towards 
Vittoria, hoping that this would be the scene of the 
decisive struggle, and here he waited six days for tidings 
of the enemy, his supplies melting away, his troops 
perishing by exposure, and his situation hourly becoming 
more critical. But Vittoria was still to wait four cen- 
turies and more for its renown as a battle-field, and the 



1367. Battle of Navarrete. 203 

Prince crossing the river Ebro in search of better camp- 
ing-ground, took up his quarters at Navarrete, on the 
right bank of the river. Meanwhile Henry of Trasta- 
mare, deaf to all suggestions except the prompting of 
his own reckless courage, no sooner received certain 
information of the position of the enemy, than he broke 
up his camp, crossed the Ebro, and marched down its 
right bank till brought up by the Najarilla, an affluent of 
the Ebro, and which now separated the two armies. His 
forces consisted of 70,000 men; the three divisions 
were led by Duguesclin, Tello, and himself. 
The English army numbered only 27,000, ?r attle of 
and its three corresponding divisions were 
headed by the Prince of Wales, the Captal de Buch, 
and the young Duke of Lancaster, with whom was John 
of Chandos, who never left his side through the battle, 
"as in former battles he had always been at the right hand 
of the Black Prince." The last-named division and that 
of Duguesclin first engaged, while Don Pedro and the 
Prince advanced upon the wing commanded by Tello. A 
sudden panic seized upon Tello, who had borne himself 
so bravely a few days before, and, without waiting for the 
onset of the English men-at-arms, he turned and fled 
from the field with 2,000 horse. 

The Prince then assailed the main body of the enemy. 
He was received with a storm of stones from the Bal- 
earic slingers of the King of Aragon, who were to the 
Spanish army what the long-bowmen were to the Eng- 
lish. But the English archers proved superior to these 
as to all other marksmen, and under the deadly shot of 
their arrows the Spanish lines begin to waver and give 
ground. Then the men-at-arms bore down upon their 
broken front, and a furious hand-to-hand contest ensued 
between the iron-clad horsemen of the Prince and the 



204 Edward the Third. a.d. 

tens of thousands of the Spanish infantry. The Span- 
ards fought bravely ; their enormous superiority of num- 
bers did not fail to tell, and it was long impossible to 
forecast the issue of the struggle, or say to which side 
victory inclined. Sir John Chandos, equally hard 
pressed by Duguesclin and the heavily-armed cavalry of 
the " Companies," had at length been born to the ground 
by a gigantic Castilian, who lay upon him and was about 
to give him his death-blow, when the gallant old knight 
drew a dagger from his bosom and stabbed his adver- 
sary to the heart. Then rising up unwounded, he re- 
mounted his horse, and gathering his best lances round 
him, charged, broke, and put to flight Duguesclin's force, 
and once more made that famous captain his prisoner. 
This was the turning point of the battle. Sir John 
Chandos's division, thus set free, assaulted the main 
body of the enemy in flank, and the fight raged with 
renewed fury round King Henry and the Prince of 
Wales. Three times were the Spaniard's troops broken 
and driven back, and three times he rallied his forces 
and hurled them against the English line. But all was 
in vain. The flight of Tello had been a fatal omen ; 
the capture of Duguesclin completed the discouragement 
of the Spaniards, and they no longer fought as men 
fight who are animated with the hope of victory. The 
battle was clearly lost, and Henry rode from the field, 
leaving 6,000 of his followers dead upon the ground. 
Don Pedro, in whom reason seems to have been ob- 
scured by the long indulgence of homicidal instincts, 
put to death in cold blood all but one of the Castilian 
nobles whom he had got into his power, and was pre- 
vented only by force from immolating the 2,000 prisoners 
who fell into the hands of the Black Prince. After the 
victory of Navarrete, Burgos opened its gates to the 



1362-7. Illness of the Black Prince. 205 

allies, and deputies from the several provinces hastened 
to tender their allegiance to their former sovereign, while 
tournaments, banquets, and processions celebrated the 
reinstatement of the bloodthirsty tyrant of Castile. 

But now arose the anxious question of money, and 
Pedro, when called upon for the covenanted 
payment of the expenses of his allies, pro- Money diffi- 
tested his good faith, and begged permis- 
sion to repair to Seville to raise the necessary funds, with 
a solemn promise that he would return before Whitsun- 
tide. By imprudently consenting to this proposal the 
Prince lost all hold over his faithless protege. Whit- 
suntide came, and three weeks more passed, but there 
were no tidings of Pedro. Sickness broke out in the 
English camp, and it is said that no less than four out of 
every five of the soldiers perished. The Prince himself 
had an attack of illness (attributed by many 

v J J Illness of 

to poison), from which, whatever may have the Black 

been its cause, he never afterwards recov- 
ered. Messengers were at length despatched to Seville, 
who brought back such an answer as showed at once 
that no good faith or gratitude was to be looked for from 
the treacherous Castilian. At the same time intelligence 
came from the Princess of Wales that Henry of Trasta- 
mare had invaded Aquitaine ; and so, after a brief but 
brilliant campaign, crowned with a victory which alone 
would have made a lesser name illustrious, the Black 
Prince withdrew through the defiles of Roncesvalles to 
his own dominions, broken in spirits, shattered in con- 
stitution, overwhelmed with debt, and leaving behind him 
four-fifths of his gallant army dead on Spanish ground. 



2o6 Edward the Third. a.d. 



FO UR TH DECADE.— k. D. 1357-1367. 



CHAPTER III. 

DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 

The narrative of the Spanish expedition has been dwelt 
upon at some length, partly because the victory of Na- 
varrete stands out prominently in the annals of English 
heroism, but chiefly because to the secondary conse- 
quences of the campaign, as will presently be seen, is 
distinctly traceable the loss of all that England had 
gained in France by the battle of Poitiers. 

But there were in the home history and domestic legis- 
lation of the decade, the external events of which we 

have just considered, many points of great 
affairs of the interest and importance which cannot be 

passed over. A second outbreak of the 
Plague occurred in the Autumn of 1361, to which the 
illustrious Lancaster of the Wryneck fell a victim. The 
years 1362-3 were as fruitful in legislation as 1352 (25 
Edward III.), and witnessed the same minute and vexa- 
tious interference with trade which characterized the 
enactments of that year. There was hardly an article of 
ordinary consumption which escaped being meddled 
with by the Parliaments of these two years. In the first 
place, as above stated, the staple, or privileged market, 
for reasons which it is difficult to comprehend, much 
more to justify, was fixed at Calais; and peculiar com- 
mercial advantages and immunities were granted to that 
port, a number of articles being specified which could 



1362-7* Interferences with Trade. 207 

not be sent out of England except thither. The result 
of this was that, during the three years which the statute 
remained unrepealed, the whole of the export trade of 
this country was compelled to pass through Calais. 
These regulations were founded on the vicious and self- 
destructive principle of directly enhancing revenue at 
the expense of commerce ; but it is difficult to see how 
they could have conduced even to that object in any 
way beyond affording greater facility and 
certainty in collecting duties ; an advantage *£■ I 3 63 - 

which would probably be more than coun- 
terbalanced by the diminution of traffic consequent upon 
the harassing restraints to which enterprise was thereby 
subjected. But indeed export trade was reduced to a 
minimum by prohibitions and all but prohibitory burdens. 
Manufactured wools, the "cloths called 'worsteds' " 
(from a village of that name in Norfolk), butter and 
cheese, and a host of other English productions were 
absolutely forbidden to be sent out of the country, to the 
great injury and discouragement of the producers of 
those articles, and with the avowed intention of keeping 
down prices. In September 1362 even wool and woolfels 
were forbidden to be exported, but in the following month 
the prohibition was removed. The reason for its re- 
moval was stated with remarkable candour, viz., that the 
" King had regard to the great subsidy which the Com- 
mons have granted him, now in this Parliament, of wools, 
leather and woolfels, to be taken for three years." By 
ancient custom the King's collectors levied half a mark 
from denizens, and \os. from aliens, on each sack of 
wool and every 300 woolfels ; but the royal officers had 
learned from the results of the arbitrary imposition of 
the "maletolt" (p. j6) how great an additional burden 
of taxation this commodity would bear, and at one criti- 



208 Echvard the Third. a.d. 

cal time — that of the second French invasion — special 
duties were imposed, amounting to the enormous amount 
of 505. on the sack of 364 lbs. The King could in fact 
by an understanding with "the trade," increase at will 
the duty on wool. The merchants, securing the mono- 
poly, were willing to pay the " maletolt," and recoup 
themselves out of the pocket of the consumer. The ex- 
port of horses, hawks, plate, coin, and coal was forbidden 
or checked by prohibitory duties, and one restrictive or- 
dinance of this date of a remarkably comprehensive 
character, declaring that "no wines, coin, beer, animals, 
whether flesh or fowl, horses, clergy, foreigners, or others, 
shall be allowed to pass out of the kingdom without spe- 
cial leave." The closest surveillance was exercised over 
the arrivals and departures ; even traders on business 
from Scotland were obliged to secure a safe-conduct. 
Merchant ships crossing the Channel were compelled to 
be armed or provided with an escort. But a strange 
light is thrown on the insecure condition of the in- 
terior of the country by the fact that traders could not 
venture to travel through England with their waggons 
of merchandise, except in large bodies, accompanied 
by a strong guard of armed men, like the caravans in 
the desert. 

While the foreign trade was thus minutely regulated, 
business transactions at home were even more inquisitor- 
ially and despotically dealt with. It seems to have been 
a general principle of legislation in those days to endeavour 
to protect the buyer against the producer, and with this 
object, to mark off sharply the distinctions between the 
different trades ; the reasons given being " the great mis- 
chiefs that have happened .... of that the merchants 
called grocers do ingross all manner of merchandise 
vendable, and suddenly do enhance the price of such 



1362-7. Sumptuary Laws. 209 

merchandise within the realm, putting to sale by ordin- 
ance made betwixt them, called the Fraternity and Guild 
of Merchants, the merchandises which be most dear, 
and keep in store the other till the time that dearth or 
scarcity be of the same." It was therefore ordained that 
all merchants should deal in one kind of merchandise 
only, and make up their minds "betwixt then and Can- 
dlemas" what that kind should be. No one should 
"meddle with the mystery of fishmongers except those 
that belong to it;" no one "should use the mystery of 
drapers without being apprenticed to it." So with the 
dealers in wine and the dealers in poultry ; and as for 
the goldsmiths, it was specially enacted "no goldsmith 
making white vessel shall meddle with gilding, nor they 
that do gild shall meddle with white vessel." These 
measures would not have been complete without an at- 
tempt at the always unprofitable and hopeless task of 
regulating personal expenditure by law. We find it em- 
bodied in a statute of the Parliament of 1363 "that the 
poor come to eat and drink in the manner that pertaineth 
to them and not excessively." No servant was to wear a 
suit of clothes costing more than 2 marks, or veils above 
\id. value ; " shepherds and all manner of people attend- 
ing to husbandry were not to wear any manner of cloths 
except blanket and russet wool of \id. a yard." It is a 
curious coincidence that just about this time Archbishop 
Islip addressed his famous remonstrance to King Ed- 
ward on the abuses, and especially the foppery and extra- 
vagance of the Court, beginning " Domine mi rex, utinam 
saperes ;" — a document well worth study as coming from 
a favourable quarter, and yet giving a picture of the 
King's Government very different from the current tra- 
ditions, which represent him as the idolized ruler of a 
happy and contented nation. 

p 



210 Edward the Third. a.d. 

All this was the work of the Parliament of 1362-63, 
but they seem to have had some misgivings as to the 
policy or the practicability of carrying out these regula- 
tions, for they recommended " that the things agreed to 
should be put by ordinance, and not by statute, in order 
that if there were anything to amend it might be amended 
in the next Parliament." It is somewhat of a relief to 
find that in that next Parliament many of the most op- 
pressive and injudicious of these enactments were actu- 
ally repealed, but it was not till 1365 that the staple was 
removed from Calais. 

It is somewhat remarkable that after the siege of that 
city we hear little or nothing more of firearms in the 
wars of this reign. The importance of archery was 
never more conspicuous than in the battle of Navarrete ; 
but it would seem from a letter of King Edward to the 
sheriffs of the counties in 1363 that there was a tendency 
among the people to a diminishing trust in this arm. 
"Whereas," so runs the circular, "the people of this 
country .... did commonly exercise themselves in the 
art of archery .... whereas now, as if entirely putting 
aside the said art, the same people take to the throwing 
of stones, wood, and iron, and some to handball, foot- 
ball, stickplay, and to the fighting of dogs and cocks 
.... it is to be proclaimed that every man in the coun- 
try of able body on feast days shall use bows and 
arrows .... in his games, and give up those vain 
games, under pain of imprisonment." 

Another memorable fact in the history of the memor- 
able year 1362 was the Parliamentary ordi- 
Engiish nance that the English instead of the French 

language. ° 

language as heretofore, should be used in 
pleadings in the courts of law. In Stat. I. c. 15, 36 Ed. 
III. the change is said to have become necessary be- 



1362-7- Affairs of Ireland. 211 

cause the " French tongue is much unknown in Eng- 
land so that the people which do implead or be impleaded 
in the King's Court or in the courts of other, have no 
knowledge or understanding of that which is said for 
them or against them by their Serjeants or other plead- 
ers." See below (pp. 274^ seqq.), where some account 
is given of the way in which English became the 
national language. It must be born in mind that at 
the date of this statute commanding the public foren- 
sic use of the English tongue, Wiclif and Chaucer, 
the fathers of English prose and of English poetry, 
had already begun their task of creating an English 
literature. 

But of all the legislative measures of this period the 
most notable was the Statute of Kilkenny, passed at a 
Parliament held in that town in the last 
year of the decade, in the Lent session of ^ ute of 

J Kilkenny. 

1367. This " famous, or infamous," enact- 
ment gathered up into one, and recapitulated with addi- 
tional aggravations and insults, all the former oppressive, 
exasperating, and iniquitous ordinances by which Eng- 
lish legislation for Ireland had hitherto been disgraced. 
In the reign of Edward II. the disaster of Bannockburn 
and the patent incapacity of the Government had kin- 
dled expectations in the hearts of the Irish of uprooting 
for ever the hated alien rule. But these hopes of national 
emancipation were disappointed, though under the brief 
reign of Edward Bruce the area occupied by the English 
of the Pale was considerably contracted, and a large 
number of the Irish regained possession of their lands. 
Among the earliest measures passed in the reign of Ed- 
ward III. was a statute directed against absenteeism, 
obliging all Englishmen who were Irish proprietors either 
to reside on their estates or to provide soldiers to defend 



212 Edward the Third, a.d. 

them. But this enactment was unproductive of good re- 
sults. The O'Neills drove the colonists out of the "lib- 
erty of Ulster," and the English De Burghs, so far from 
helping to uphold English ascendency, appropriated to 
themselves the entire lordship of Connaught, made 
common cause with the native tribes, and adopting 
their dress, language, and customs, became Hibemis 
ipsis Hibemiores, threw off their allegiance to King 
Edward, and bade defiance to the King's authority. 
Thus it came to pass that before many years of this 
reign had elapsed more than a third part of the terri- 
tories of the Pale was again in the hands of its original 
possessors. 

Had English statesmen contemplated only the alterna- 
tives of the enslavement or the extermination of the 
conquered inhabitants; had they, on the one hand, ex- 
pected to be able to reduce them to the condition of 
Helots, indifferent to freedom or incapable of resistance ; 
or, on the other, indulged the hope that the Irish would 
decay and disappear before the colonists as savage abo- 
rigines melt away before a stronger race, their policy 
would indeed be explicable. But the native race was 
endowed with far too much vitality for the latter fate, 
and with far too much pride, courage, elasticity, and 
genius for the former; and the half-measures which were 
adopted tended only to exasperate, and not to coerce or 
overawe. 

Edward III. inherited the barbarous and iniquitous 
traditions of English rule in Ireland, but he improved 
upon them. He ordered all his officers in that country 
who had Irish estates to be removed and give place to 
Englishmen with no Irish ties. He next declared void 
every grant of land in Ireland since the time of Edward 
II., and made new grants of the lands thus recovered to 



1362-7. Affairs of Ireland. 213 

the Crown. The tendency of this monstrous measure 
was to create two more antagonistic parties in Ireland, 
destined by their bitter dissensions to bring about the 
result that ere long "all the King's land in Ireland was 
on the point of passing away from the Crown of England," 
— viz. the " English by blood." as the established settlers 
were called, and the " English by birth," or new grantees. 
Some of the chief of the former, in despair of a career, 
or even of a quiet life, at home, were about to bid good- 
bye to Ireland and seek their fortunes elsewhere, when 
they were arrested by a proclamation making it penal 
for any English subject capable of bearing arms to leave 
the country. In 1357 was passed the monstrous enact- 
ment already described, forbidden marriage and " gossi- 
pred " between English and Irish. In 1359 Edward 
forbade the election of any " mere Irish " to the office of 
mayor, bailiff, or other civil post of authority. But the 
"evils" against which these statutes were directed con- 
tinued to increase. The "English by blood " became 
more and more intimately connected and identified with 
the native Irish, and the "English by birth" became 
more and more powerless to maintain the English 
ascendancy ; till at last, in 1361, the King determined on 
sending over a viceroy of the blood royal, and appointed 
to the post his son Lionel, created shortly afterwards 
Duke of Clarence, whom he had married to Elizabeth de 
Burgh, daughter and representative of the last Earl of 
Ulster. But though Prince Lionel, on his arrival, took 
the precaution of forbidding any man born in Ireland to 
approach his camp, his position soon became so critical 
that the King issued writs commanding all the absentee 
Irish lords to hasten to Ireland to the assistance of the 
Prince, "for that his very dear son and his companions in 
Ireland were in imminent peril." 



214 Edward the Third. A.D. 

The next step was the passing of the Statute of Kil- 
kenny. It re-enacted the prohibition of marriage and 
foster-nursing, rendered obligatory the adoption of the 
English language and customs, forbade the national 
games of " hurlings and quoitings," and the use of the 
ancient Gaelic code called the Senchus Mor ; a code by 
which the native brehons, or judges, of the Irish septs had 
decided causes among them since the time of the conver- 
sion of the race to Christianity in the fifth century. The 
English by birth were no longer to be called in derision 
" English hobbes," nor the English by blood " Irish 
dogs;" but the statute contained no prohibition of the 
expression " mere Irish " as applied to the Irish by 
birth and by blood. Reflecting on the long series of 
efforts made by the English to legislate for Ireland, and 
the sum of their past and present results, one is tempted 
to parody, in a reverse sense, the well-known couplet 
of Goldsmith, and exclaim — 

How much of all that human hearts endure 
Kings and their laws can cause and cannot cure. 



1367. Splendour of Edward 1 s reign. 215 



FIFTH DECADE. 

A.D. 1367-1377. 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM THE END OF THE SPANISH CAMPAIGN TO KING 

Edward's last treaty with France. 

The last decade saw King Edward III. at the zenith of 
power and renown. His Court was the most splendid in 
Europe. The vanquished and captured „ , , 

__. - ^ . , , Splendour 

King of France was its permanent and hon- of Edward's 
oured guest rather than a prisoner. The 
King of Scotland was there ' pleading for a reduc- 
tion of his ransom; and a third crowned head, the 
King of Cyprus, had come from that distant outpost of 
Christendom to supplicate the aid of the foremost warrior 
of the faith against the encroachments of the infidel. 
Popular at home and dreaded abroad, he had obtained by 
force of arms and by the wise abandonment of his claim 
to the crown of France, the full sovereignty over a third 
part of that kingdom ; and had committed the safe-keep- 
ing of this great dominion to a son the terror of whose 
name was a better protection than a cordon of fortresses. 
His fleets rode the Channel as triumphantly as his armies 
had marched over the soil of France. At home his royal 
revenue was doubled, and the condition of the people 
incalculably improved ; and a sounder system of govern- 
ment and legislation, because resting on a wider and 
more popular basis, had been substituted for the thinly 



216 Edward the Third. a.d. 

disguised and insecure despotism of his predecessors. 
Before the close of this fifth and last decade 

and its decay. Qf ^ ^^ ^ that ^ extemal of this 

splendid fabric of prosperity and power had crumbled 
into dust. The best army that England could raise had 
all but perished of cold and hunger among the bleak 
hills of Auvergne ; her fleets were driven from the seas, 
her coasts ravaged and burned with impunity ; the plague 
again broke out ; the good queen was no more ; the 
Court had become a scene of intrigue, and the royal 
authority and character had been brought into contempt ; 
— nothing remained of that brilliant forty years past 
excepting the silent upgrowth of liberty, constitutional- 
ism and equal rights, which the King and his counsellers 
had done their best to check, as mischievous and unduti- 
ful encroachment. 

It is unnecessary to dwell long on the details of the 
history of this gloomy period, but some short account 
must be given of the successive strokes of misfortune 
which brought low the English dominion in France. 

The Spanish campaign was, in its immediate and re- 
moter consequences, a fatal triumph for the English arms. 
The Black Prince, the hope of the future of the country, 
returned from Spain to Aquitaine a broken, and (though 
he lingered for nine years) — to all intents and purposes, 
a dying man. He took the field but once again, and 
that on an expedition which his biographer would gladly 
erase from the history of his life. The debts 
which he had contracted, in reliance on the 
promises of the infamous Pedro, were so pressing that he 
had no choice but (i) to dismiss the "Companies" half 
paid, with a tacit permission to ravage French territory, 
and (2) to impose a war tax upon his newly acquired 
subjects. The tax selected was one of the most unfortu- 



1368. Consequences of Spanish Campaign. 217 

nate and unpopular that could have been hit upon, for the 
French peasant was reminded of its burden imposition 
every time he lighted his fire of sticks to ° f th f 

J ° hearth tax. 

cook his frugal meal. Each "hearth" was 
assessed to pay a duty of half a franc a year for five 
years. This impost was recommended to the Prince by 
his Chancellor, but was strongly disapproved of by many 
of his other advisers, and his tried old friend John of 
Chandos was so convinced of its impolicy and danger 
that, on his warnings being disregarded, he withdrew to 
his domain in Normandy. Prince Edward had made an 
enemy of the Lord of Albret, one of the most powerful 
of the southern French barons, by dismissing, as un- 
necessary, five-sixths of the contingent of lances which 
that noble had brought with him to join the Spanish 
campaign. He and other disaffected lords whose do- 
mains skirted the Pyrenees, determined to resist the tax, 
and in defiance of the treaty of Bretigni, by which all 
rights over Aquitaine were for ever ceded to England, 
they hastened to Paris and appealed to the King of 
France as their proper suzerain. 

It would seem to be impossible, at this distance of time, 
to attempt to assign to the English and to the French 
King each his due proportion of blame for the fatal non- 
execution of the "renunciations" agreed upon under the 
treaty. Edward was probably unwilling, on his part, to 
give up the claim to the crown of France which had cost 
his country so dear, till the rest of the stipulations had 
been fulfilled, or due security given for their fulfilment ; 
whereas Charles soon found out that the inhabitants of 
the ceded districts were not very warm in their new alle- 
giance ; and he probably cherished the hope that, before 
he tied his hands by the execution of formal renuncia- 
tions, some occasion might arise to enable him to recover 



2i8 Edward the Third. a.d. 

all that France had lost in his father's reign. Be this as 

it may, he listened with a ready ear to the grievances of 

the discontented nobles ; but, unwilling at 

A.D. I369. 

Prince of once to expose his hand, he managed to 

m^ned^o 111 " amuse and detain them at his Court, under 
Pans. various pretexts, for a whole year. At last, in 

the spring of 1 369, he threw off his disguise and summoned 
the Prince of Wales to appear before him at his Court of 
Paris, to answer the complaint of his vassals. Surprise 
and indignation roused for a moment the old spirit in the 
failing Prince. " Gladly," said he to the messenger, "we 
will answer to our summons as the King of France has 
ordered us, but it will be with helm on head and with 
60,000 men." Until this time Charles, "wise" with the 
serpent's wisdom, had kept up a show of friendship with 
the English Court, and had so far succeeded as to make 
King Edward turn a deaf ear to the warnings 
French which the Prince repeatedly addressed to his 

Courtesies r J 

father. The instalments of King John's 
ransom were punctually paid, and the English King 
received a present of fifty pipes of wine from his " brother 
of France," which it should be said, however, he 
immediately returned. Galeazzo Vesconti, the ambitious 
lord of Milan, having married his son John to the daughter 
of the late King of France, now determined to ally him- 
self to the royal house of England, and 
tempted Lionel, Duke of Clarence, then a 
widower, with the offer of a splendid dowry, to take the 
hand of his daughter Violante. King Charles received 
the English Prince at the Court of Paris, with his enormous 
retinue, on his way to Italy, and feasted them royally 
for many days. These intimate and cordial 
relations were rudely interrupted by the 
news of the summons of the Prince of Wales to appear 



1369. Aggressions of the French King. 219 

and answer for himself before the French King. Edward 
III., seriously alarmed at the turn things were taking, 
offered once more formally to renounce all claim to the 
French crown, on condition of being left in peaceable 
possession of his French territories. This proposal was 
laid before the Peers of France, who advised their 
sovereign to reply to it by a declaration of 
war. King Edward had all along, with his J^u *™ ch 
old and justifiable distrust of French courte- P°nthieu. 
sies, been making active preparations for the defence of 
his Continental as well as of his English territories, but 
on this occasion King Charles was beforehand with him. 
War was not declared till the French King's plans were 
ripe for execution, and the very day on which the 
"kitchen scullion" who carried the defiance to Edward 
set foot on English ground, Ponthieu was entered and 
occupied by French troops, who met with little opposition 
on the part of the garrisons, and none on that of the 
population. Shortly afterwards the whole of the English 
possessions in France were by authoritative sentence 
and proclamation declared to be " annexed to the French 
crown." 

War was now inevitable, but in the meantime events 
had taken place in Spain which gave King Charles a 
powerful ally, of whose services he was not long in avail- 
ing himself. When the Black Prince returned to Aqui- 
taine, and was safe on the French side of the 

A.D. I368. 

Pyrenees, the ex-King Henry of Trastamare Spain 
withdrew from his inroad into the Duchy, Henry of Y 
and re-entered Spain at the head of 9,000 Trastamare. 
men that he had been enabled to draw to his standard by 
the assistance of the Duke of Anjou ; the runaway hostage 
whom, it will be remembered, King Charles, his brother, 
had made lieutenant-general in Languedoc. Henry 



220 Edward the Third. a.d. 

found that the continued cruelties of Pedro had already 
disposed the Castilians to welcome a rival claimant to the 
throne, and he at once gained easy possession of some 
of the principal cities, but was obliged to lay regular siege 
to Toledo, which still held out for the reigning King. 
Here he was joined by 2,000 of the " Companies " from 
Languedoc ; and a large body of French adventurers in 
search of glory or spoil, under the command of Dugues- 
clin, who had again been ransomed from Sir John of 
Chandos for 100,000 francs. Henry soon found himself 
in a position to take the field against his half-brother. 
All except the Andalusians had deserted Pedro, but he 
was supported by 20,000 men from that province, and 
did not scruple to associate with them 20,000 Moors, 
whom he procured from the King of Granada by means 
of his friendsnip with that monarch's vizier and chief 
astrologer, Benahattin. He was advancing with this 
formidable host to raise the siege of his faithful city of 
Toledo, when Henry, acting under the advice of Dugues- 
clin, marched out to meet him, and the two armies fell in 
with each other hard by the Castle of Montiel. Pedro's 
soldiers, who had no suspicion of the near- 

M a ontle? f ness °^ ^ e enem y> were advancing in 

irregular groups, and Henry fell upon them 
in detail with his whole force, and put them to the rout, 
before they had time to form in battle order, or bring 
each other mutual assistance. The battle was long and 
bloody, for the Andalusians and the Moors had the 
advantage of numbers ; and the soldiers of Henry, taking 
them all indiscriminately for "accursed Jews and Ma- 
hometans," both sides maintained the struggle with the 
ferocity engendered by the antipathy of religion as well 
as of race. Pedro, to do him justice, fought this, his last 
fight, like a man, and held his ground till forced off the 



1369. Death of Pedro the Cruel. 221 

field by his still faithful friend Fernando de Castro, and 
hurried for safety into the castle. At midnight he 
attempted to fly from the stronghold, but was seized and 
carried into a tent in Henry's camp, where the two bro- 
thers were shortly brought face to face. They flung 
themselves one upon the other with all the fury of mutual 
hatred. In the struggle Pedro, being the stronger, got 
Henry down under him, and was in the act of giving him 
a vital stab, when Duguesclin caught him by the leg and 
turned him over, and Henry springing up A D , 
buried his dagger in his brother's heart. £ ea th of _ 

00 m Pedro and 

This hideous scene was the end of the civil reinstate- 

TT r _ meni of 

war. Henry of I rastamare was once more Henry of 
proclaimed king, and he and his descendants rastamare. 
for many generations ruled peaceably over the realm of 
Castile. 

But he could not forget the part which the Prince of 
Wales had taken against him. During the siege of Toledo 
he had entered into a treaty against England with the 
King of France, and was now prepared to give him active 
assistance in the war which was declared against Eng- 
land within a month of Henry's second accession. The 
English Parliament was sitting at the time of the arrival 
of the bearer of the French defiance — a kitchen-boy [var- 
let de cuisine) selected to aggravate the in- 
suit of the challenge. As soon as it was of War by 
ascertained that the letter was genuine, King, against 
Lords, and Commons determined on imme- England, 
diate preparations for a vigorous resistance. The Parlia- 
ment granted a liberal subsidy for war expenses, and 
recommended that Edward should again 

° Prepara- 

assume the title of King of France, "just tions for 

as before the peace which Charles, son of 

John, late King of France, had broken." From that time 



222 Edward the Third, a.d. 

till the reign of George III., the French fleur-de-lys were 

quartered with the English leopards on our Great Seal." 

The first attack on France was made through Brittany. 

Its Duke was now, by express stipulation, a vassal of the 

King of France ; but his heart always in- 
mence!nent clined towards the English alliance, and, 
tweenEn"- though he had done homage to Charles in 
land and 1 366, in 1 372 he had again entered into a 

treaty offensive and defensive with Edward, 
and he now welcomed the invaders of France on their 
disembarkation in his dominions. Sir John Chandos re- 
turned to his duty when danger threatened ; the Captal 
de Buch and Sir Hugh Calverly came at the call of the 
Prince to the rendezvous at Angouleme, where he laid 
almost helpless from disease, and devoured with vexa- 
tion. Meantime an expedition for the invasion of Eng- 
land was being fitted out in the northern ports of France 
but the Duke of Lancaster having occupied Calais with a 
strong force} the invasion was abandoned. The French 
fleet had only accomplished the burning of Portsmouth, 
when it was recalled, and King Charles concentrated his 
soldiers at home, while the Duke was wasting and pil- 
laging far and wide between Calais and the capital. A 
French force under the King's brother, Philip Duke of 
Burgundy, largely outnumbering the English, advanced 
against them, but was withheld from engaging by orders 
from the King of France. After confronting the invaders 
for some weeks, the Duke broke up his army, and having 
lighted his watch-fires to deceive the enemy, decamped 
under cover of night, just as his grandfather, King Philip, 
had done twenty years before on almost the same ground 
abandoning the citizens of Calais to their fate. 

The ensuing winter was made sadly memorable by the 
death, in a chance melee, of the gallant old John of 



*37°- Death of John of Chandos, 223 

Chandos. Encountering a small body of the enemy at 
the foot of a bridge over the Vienne, Sir 
John had dismounted — for the ground was chando° f 

slippery with frost — thinking to fight them 
better on foot. His leg got entangled in the long robe 
of " white samite " which he wore under his armour, 
and he fell upon his knee. He had lost an eye, hunting, 
some five years before, and a nameless knight, coming 
upon his blind side, dealt him a mortal blow in the face, 
under his unclosed vizor. His loss was a fatal injury to 
the English cause in the long, desultory warfare that now 
began and continued for years, with varying success on 
both sides. It is unnecessary to give the wearisome de- 
tails. Suffice it to say that every year saw the English 
dominion more and more disintegrated, and fresh acces- 
sions made from it to the territories of France. The Duke 
of Lancaster, on whom the conduct of the war devolved, 
was gifted with no military capacity ; and there is reason 
to suspect that he was even now not uninfluenced by a 
jealousy of his illustrious brother, and a desire to take 
advantage of the enfeebled condition of that Prince for 
his own aggrandisement. King Edward, with his con- 
currence, and possibly at his suggestion — for he was wit- 
ness to the order — and commanded the Black Prince to 
remit the hearth tax, and restore the money already 
paid. He also offered the royal pardon to those who had 
revolted against the English authority ; and sent the 
Duke with a fresh commission into Aquitaine, nominally 
to reinforce his brother, but with ample powers of inde- 
pendent action. And now King Charles, believing that 
the time had come for striking a fatal blow, and having 
asked for and obtained a liberal subsidy from the States- 
General, organised a double and simultaneous invasion 
of the English territory, to be led by his two brothers, 



224 Edward the Third. a.d. 

the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Bern. The first 
army under the real leadership of Duguesclin, 
and reinforced by a large body of the " Com- 
panies," overran the Agenois, taking city after city, and 
advancing within a few miles of Bordeaux itself. The 
other entered the Limousin, and laid siege to its capital, 
Limoges, which was surrendered to them by the treach- 
ery of its governor, the Bishop. Sir Robert 
taken by the Knolles meanwhile landed at Calais with 
5,000 men, and ravaged the north of France, 
sparing only the cities which were willing to pay him 
"black mail." He could find no enemy to meet him in 
the field, and advanced so far as even to threaten the 
city of Paris, from the ramparts of which the citizens 
could see the farms and villages blazing. Knolles had 
risen into notice as a captain of brigands, but was now 
in the pay of the English King, and is claimed as one 
of the ancient "Worthies" of the county of Chester. 
" In despight of their power," says Fuller, "he drove the 
French people before him like sheep, destroying towns, 
castles, and cities in such manner and number, that many 
years after, the sharp points and gable-ends of overthrown 
houses, cloven asunder with instruments of war, were com- 
monly called \ Knolles his mitres.' " Duguesclin was sum- 
moned from the south to defend the capital, but Knolles, 
whose followers became unruly and mutinous after a 
slight reverse, withdrew into Brittany before his arrival. 
The Prince of Wales, for some unexplained reason, 
was beside himself with fury at the surrender of Limoges, 
and swore by the soul of his father that he 

Recapture J 

of Limoges would recover the city. He was carried in a 
sacre of "in- litter — for he could no longer ride — up to the 
habitants. walls, and finding the place too well fortified 

and garrisoned for a successful assault, sat down before 



I37 2 - Massacre at Li?noges. 225 

it to take it by siege, and his engineers mined the walls 
night and day. At the end of a month the mine was 
completed, and the wall stood supported only upon 
wooden props, with which the miners had shored it up 
as they worked. Fire was now set to the props, the 
workmen withdrew, and at "the hour of prime," as fixed 
by the Prince, down crashed " a great pane " of the wall, 
leveling up the ditch, and leaving a breach through which 
the English poured in before the garrison had recovered 
from the stupor of the shock. Inflamed with revenge- 
ful passion and triumph, the Prince " rode in high 
mounted (on his litter), with his guards and partisans on 
foot," and deliberately ordered his soldiers to dash out 
with their poleaxes the brains of all they met, and show 
no mercy to man, woman, or child. A guard of archers 
was posted at the breach, and another at the gate, to slay 
the fugitives. "Surely at such a time," says Barnes, 
"War is drest up in his most Dreadful Habiliments, 
and that Heart must be strongly barred against all access 
of Pitty, which would not relent at the sight when Men, 
Women, and Children, with Hands and Eyes lifted, flung 
themselves on their Knees before the Enraged Prince to 
entreat for mercy." 

This was the last military exploit of the victor of Poi- 
tiers, and one too many for his fair fame. But even 
then, though mercy was extinct, the class-feelings of 
chivalry survived. Three French knights, seeing that 
all was over, resolved at least to sell their lives as dearly 
as they could, planted their backs to a wall, and with 
eighty stout men-at-arms beside them, and their banners 
displayed, awaited the onslaught of the English. The 
men-at-arms were soon beaten down and slain by over- 
whelming numbers, but those three knights still stood at 
bay ; and the Duke of Lancaster and the Earls of Cam- 

Q 



226 Edward the Third. a.d. 

bridge and of Pembroke each singled out and attacked 
one of them, while the slayers paused from the work of 
destruction to gaze on the triple duel. The Black Prince 
was passing in his litter, and his vindictive rage gave 
way as he saw how gallantly his brothers and the French- 
men fought. And so, for the sake of these three "va- 
liant gentlemen," he commanded that the slaughter 
should cease, and " took them and the survivors to 
mercy." The traitorous bishop, the author of the whole 
calamity, was also spared, at the urgent entreaty of Pope 
Urban V. ; but 3,000 of the innocent plebeian townsfolk 
were massacred, and the city reduced to ashes. 

The Prince, on returning from the sack of Limoges, 
became rapidly so much worse that his physicians per- 
emptorily ordered his immediate departure for England. 
So urgent were they that he left the body of 
Return of his eldest son Edward, who died at this junc- 
Prince to ture, to be buried by the Duke of Lancaster, 

England. now a pp i n ted his successor in the govern- 

ment of Aquitaine. But the duchy was fast slipping out 
of English hands ; and that it was so is an indication of 
something more than want of military capacity in the 
English leaders, or the superiority of French tactics. 
Charles was " wise " enough to see and take advantage 
of the change of feeling that had come over the inhabi- 
tants themselves. The newly annexed districts hardly 
disguised the reluctance with which they submitted to 
English rule, and even the provinces which had never 
been separated from the English dominion began to feel 
that they belonged by natural right to France, and to 
turn their eyes toward Paris as the proper centre of their 
national life. The time was long passed for Aquitaine to 
glory, as it once did, in its independence of the King 
who reigned at Paris ; and the existence of a foreign 



1373* Causes of the loss of Aquitaine. 227 

principality within the geographical limits of France was 
doomed from the moment that it became " an anachro- 
nism " — that is to say, a fact out of keeping with the 
times. 

But though the Black Prince was, as a soldier, "as 
good as dead," and the King himself enfeebled in mind 
and body, the English people had no intention of sub- 
mitting to a dismemberment of the monarchy, and unani- 
mously determined on a new invasion of France. Fatal 
errors had meantime been committed. The King of 

Navarre and Robert II. of Scotland had , K „ x 

rA.D. 1370.) 

been suffered to ally themselves with the The Kings 

of Navarre 

French. This Robert, the nephew of David and Scot- 
II., who died in 137 1, was the first crowned ance with " 
King, of the family of the hereditary France - 
"Stewards" of Scotland, a title which, under the later 
form of Stuart, gave a name to our royal English dynasty, 
the lineal descendants of Robert II. About the same 
time an untoward concurrence of circumstances confirmed 
the hostility of the new King of Castile, and 
made him a bitter as well as a dangerous 
enemy to England. King Pedro's daughters had been 
allowed to rejoin their father, and upon his death they 
fled for refuge to Bayonne, in English territory. John of 
Gaunt, having lost his wife, who brought him his title of 
Lancaster, was advised by the Gascon nobles to marry 
Constance, the eldest daughter. " My Lord," they said, 
"you are marriageable, and we know of a great marriage 
whereby you and your heirs will be kings of Castile; and 
it is a great charity to comfort and advise young girls, and 
especially the daughters of a king. Take the eldest in 
marriage, we advise you." The Duke listened to their 
suggestion, and he and his brother, the Earl of Cambridge, 
married the two orphan sisters. The Duke assuming the 



228 Edward the Third. a.d. 

title of King of Castile, the reigning sovereign had no 
choice but to repel the pretension by all means in his 
power, and an opportunity of aggression was not long 
wanting to his hands. King Edward and his Council 
having determined to invade France by way of Rochelle, 
the command of the expedition was given to the Earl of 
Pembroke, and the King was so ill-advised as to send a 
"small force of soldiers," but "plenty of money " to pay 
the troops who, he was assured, would " flock to his 
standard in Poitou." This money, as will be seen (page 
238), was chiefly raised on the property of the Church, 
and to this fact the superstitious attributed the disastrous 
result of the expedition. At the French King's entreaty 
Henry of Trastamare sent a Spanish fleet to Rochelle to 

oppose the disembarkation of the invading 
R?chene ° ff forces. The English were in possession of 

the castle, and nominally of the town, of 
Rochelle; but in no part of the French territory ceded 
under the treaty of Bretigni was the ill-will of the inhabi- 
tants towards their new masters more strongly felt. When 
Pembroke arrived with his little fleet off Rochelle, he found 
forty great castellated Spanish "niefs" and other vessels 
drawn up to receive him. The English at once attacked 
them, and fought so valiantly that, when night separated 
the combatants, the battle was undecided. The governor 
of the place laboured hard to persuade the townsmen 
to embark and help the English ; but they pleaded that, 
though they would gladly fight on land, they were no 
sailors. Next morning at high tide, the Spaniards having 
the wind in their favour, each of their ships deliberately 
singled out and grappled an English vessel, and pouring 
down stones, lead, and bars of iron from the "tops" upon 
the deck of the enemy, sent it and its crew to the bottom 
before the English could climb the steep sides of the 



1373- Last Invasion of Fra?ice. 229 

Spanish nief. Pembroke himself was taken prisoner, the 
treasure ship sunk, the whole of the English fleet captured 
or destroyed, and a blow thus inflicted on England's 
naval power from which it took many a long day to 
recover. 

But the war still lingered on with varying success. 
Bertrand Duguesclin, now Constable of France, was the 
commander-in-chief of the French land forces, and he 
was ably seconded by Owen of Wales, a famous sea-cap- 
tain, of whom many brilliant exploits are recorded ; 
among others the capture of the Captal de Buch, the 
last soldier of mark on the English side. Rochelle was 
taken by stratagem, Poitiers by treachery ; Soubise, St. 
Jean d'Angeley, and Saintes surrendered ; and Thouars 
and Bordeaux were now the only cities of importance 
left to the English in Aquitaine. Thouars 
was already invested by the French, and |^s e of 

thither came the Constable Duguesclin, with 
7,000 men to reinforce the besiegers. The barons friendly 
to England, shut up in Thouars, sent word to King Ed- 
ward that they had agreed to capitulate if not relieved 
by September 29. The King made a last effort to fling 
off his growing lethargy, and proclaimed that he would 
invade France himself, with his three sons, at the head 
of his army ; and the poor shattered Prince of Wales 
declared that though he died on the way, he should not 
be left behind. On August 30, the expedi- „ . , 

• , r ^ 1 • 1 • • Fruitless 

tion sailed from Sandwich — 400 ships, car- attempt to 

1 j 1 relieve it. 

rying 10,000 bowmen and 4,000 lances — 
but it was destined never to reach the French shore. 
Five weeks they beat in vain against contrary winds, and 
September 29 found them still tossing on the waves of 
the Channel. "God was for the King of France," the 
people said, for no sooner had the baffled expedition dis- 



230 Edward the Third. a.d. 

embarked than the wind changed to a favourable quar- 
ter. It is said to have lost ,£900,000. Thouars, of course, 
surrendered, and the French cruisers again crossed the 
sea, and pillaged the English coast, and again set fire to 
Portsmouth. 

The next year brought fresh disasters, but the decisive 
failure of the whole war was the last great expedition 
under the Duke of Lancaster in the autumn of 1373. 
One of the chief sufferers by the successes of the French 
was the Duke of Brittany, who had throughout faithfully, 
if disloyally, supported the English cause. Duguesclin 
had, by King Charles's orders, invaded Brittany, and re- 
duced almost all the strongholds in the duchy ; including 
the fortresses of Bretagne Bretonnante, or western 
Brittany, which had never before been occupied by royal 
troops. The Duke, who had been expelled from France, 
in 1373, now earnestly entreated the King of England, 
his father-in-law, to make one final effort for the recov- 
ery of the transmarine territories which he had lost. An 
expedition was planned on a scale of great 

A. D. \"XT\. 

Invasion of magnificence. A splendidly equipped army 
thTDuk/of left the English shores, accompanied by the 
Lancaster Du fc e of Brittany, and a brilliant array of 

English barons and knights, was reinforced on its arrival 
at Calais by mercenaries from Hainault, Flanders, and 
Brabant. They marched into France in three great 
"battles," overrunning and wasting Artois, Picardy, the 
Vermandois, Champagne, Berri, and Limousin. The 
Constable and the Royal Dukes of France were in force 
at Troyes, but they had orders to watch only, and not to 
attempt to resist the invaders. " Let them go," ran the 
King's instructions. " By burnings they will not come 
to your heritage. Though a storm and tempest rage 
together over a land, they disperse of themselves. So 



I37 1 - Disastrous Result of the last Invasion, 231 

will it be with these English." The latter were now ap- 
proaching a very different country from the Vermandois, 
or the borders of the "noble river Marne," where the 
terrified peasantry supplied them with food and forage 
from their fertile lands — and here they had often "to go 
for a week without bread." Flying detachments of the 
French had, from the time the expedition started from 
Calais, been hanging on their flanks, cutting off foragers 
and stragglers, but always avoiding a collision with the 
main body. These pitiless pursuers now amounted to 
3,000 men, as, with winter coming on, the half-famished 
English columns entered the sterile and shelterless moun- 
tains of Auvergne, where they soon began to suffer the 
extremities of famine. Their horses were dying of star- 
vation, and out of 30,000 which they had brought with 
them, but a very few were now alive. As for the men 
themselves, "it was a miserable sight," says Walsing- 
ham, "to see famous and noble soldiers, once delicate 
and rich in England, without their men or their horses, 
begging their bread from door to door ; nor was there 
one who would give it them." At last a few spectral fu- 
gitives, out of the proud army which had marched from 
Calais, found shelter within the walls of Bordeaux. 

Though this was not the last effort made by England, 
it was the last which may be called national. Fighting 
continued to be carried on in Brittany, and A peace 
reinforcements were sent there from time to with France 

. , 1 -r* concluded. 

time, but with no important results. Pope 
Gregory XL, ever since his accession in 1370, had used 
his honest endeavours to bring about a peace; but in 
those earlier days the humiliations of England and the 
successes of France were both too incomplete to dispose 
their sovereigns to accept his offers of mediation. Now, 
however, Edward was glad enough to send ambassadors 






232 



Edward the Third. a.d. 



to meet the Papal nuncios at Bruges ; and, after long 
delays and difficulties on the part of the French, a truce 
was finally agreed upon, to continue till the last day of 
June 1376. In the beginning of that year it was again 
prolonged, but it expired before the death of Edward III.; 
and his successor found himself compelled, among the 
first acts of his reign, to provide for the defence of the 
southern coasts of England against the united fleets of 
France and Spain 

We have already seen how the great north central 
kingdom of Spain, delivered from civil strife and foreign 
intervention, was now peaceably governed by King 
Henry of Trastamare (page 221). The rest of the Pen- 
insula had been but slightly affected by the great events 
of the epochs of Edward III. 

But it remains to add a few words on the external and 
internal condition of France at the end of 

Internal con- 
dition of the first half of the " Hundred Years' War." 

During the fifth decade of Edward's reign 
the destinies of that kingdom had been in the hands of 
a prince of no ordinary capacity. It is true that nothing 
could have seemed more unpromising than his earlier 
essays at government. He had shown himself selfish, 
treacherous, and vindictive, a reckless indifferent specta- 
tor of the miseries of his country ; and had done his best 
to thwart the patriotic efforts of those who might then 
have saved France, by reforming the abuses of her ad- 
ministration and reawakening her national energies. 
But Charles V. had already lived long enough to earn 
and deserve the epithet of "the Wise," and indeed to 
accomplish himself, though at a terrible cost of suffering 
to his country, most of the great and beneficent objects 
for which Marcel had sacrificed his noble life in vain. 
He had lived to see repaired many of the disasters of 



1 3 7 1 . Condition of France. 233 

the first two Valois reigns; to see the "foreigner" 
checked in Brittany and thrust out of Aquitaine. Europe, 
pitying the miseries and humiliations of France, had 
come to sympathise with her ruler in his patient and 
determined efforts for her restoration to her place among 
the nations ; and the warlike achievements of Duguesclin 
had done something towards restoring her military pres- 
tige. Froissart, at the time of the latest revision of his 
work, had transferred his literary allegiance from the 
unsuccessful to the successful camp, and become thor- 
oughly French in tone and sympathies ; but seeing, ac- 
cording to his wont, only the external forms and colours 
of history, he, like the bulk of his contemporaries, alto- 
gether failed to comprehend how such great results could 
be brought about by a king who " never buckled on a 
cuirass," and rarely made a public appearance — a mere 
M thinker," a mysterious recluse, who lived shut up in his 
Hotel de St. Pol, with his "physicians, jurists, architects, 
and astrologers." 

Charles V., and he alone, restored national indepen- 
dence to France, but it was at the cost of civil freedom. 
The expenses of the war, the enormous ransoms of the 
prisoners, the stoppage of industry, had all but beggared 
the Government and the people, and the king was not 
even then withheld, by the emptiness of his exchequer, 
from undertaking public works and costly buildings. He 
completed the fortifications of Paris begun by Marcel, 
erected churches, bridges, and fortresses; and among 
them the Bastille of gloomy memory, not indeed as a 
prison, but in order to keep the citizens of Paris in check. 

To meet the difficulties arising from the want of money, 
Charles, who, since 1369, had governed without a Parlia- 
ment, found himself obliged to impose very heavy taxes 
on all "commodities," and especially upon labour. Each 



234 Edward the Third. a.d. 

family was compelled to purchase, every three months, 
from the royal stores, a quantity of salt, calculated 
according to their supposed wants, by the officers of the 
excise, and the fines under this impost were applied to 
paying the salaries of the public functionaries — a fruitful 
source of corruption and tyranny. Twelve deniers were 
levied on each lb. of provisions sold, and this tax was 
" farmed " by the creatures of the crown. Fuel was taxed 
at the rate of six francs a year per fire in the towns, and 
two francs per fire in the country — an enormous impost, 
for it will be remembered that a hearth tax of half a franc 
had been made the pretext for the revolt of Aquitaine. 
Step by step, these "extraordinary" were converted into 
"ordinary" and permanent "aids," and royal collectors 
were in every case substituted for officers chosen, as 
heretofore, by the taxpayers themselves. The only 
consolation the people had was, that the king's hand, if 
heavy, was strong, and the stern, irresistible regularity of 
the administration no doubt assisted them to bear burdens 
under which they would otherwise have succumbed or 
broken out into open rebellion. 

In a word, France under Charles V. had passed through 
a terrible agony. It is true that at the close of his reign 
in 1380, her Goverment was powerful and respected; her 
foreign enemies had been humiliated, or expelled from 
her shores, her coinage, and with it her credit, had been 
restored, and most of the disasters of preceding reigns 
were already repaired, or in a fair way to reparation. 
But for all this she had paid a heavy price, in submitting 
to the establishment of an administrative and fiscal 
despotism from which she has never since, under any 
changes of Government, been wholly emancipated. 



1 3 7 2 . Internal Affairs of England. 235 



FIFTH DECADE.— A. D. 1367-1377. 



CHAPTER II. 

INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF ENGLAND TILL THE DEATH OF 
THE KING. 

One turns with a sense of relief from the ineffectual and 
inglorious efforts made by England to recover her lost 
position abroad, to the Parliamentary history 
of a decade which, though overshadowed by 1377- 
the influence of external disasters, was fruit- Affairs* of 
ful in wholesome legislation, and marked England. 
by the steady growth of constitutional principles, 

The first Parliament of importance after that of 1369, 
which had advised Edward to resume the 
title of King of France, was held at West- 
minster in the spring of 1371. The customary opening 
speech was made on this occasion by William of Wyke- 
ham, Bishop of Winchester, and then Lord Chancellor of 
England, the last of a long unbroken succession of eccle- 
siastical Chancellors ; for one of the earliest acts of this 
Parliament was to present a petition praying 
that: — "whereas the government of the ofEcciesias- 
kingdom had long been carried on by men great offices 
of Holy Church, who are not ' justiciable * of State ' 
in all cases, from which great mischiefs and damages 
have come in times past, and more may happen in time 
to come; therefore, laymen being able and sufficient, 
none others shall be made Chancellors, Barons of the 
Exchequer, or shall be appointed to other great offices of 



236 Edward the Third. a.d. 

State for the future." The leader in this anticlerical 
movement was the Earl of Pembroke, the King's son-in- 
law, afterwards taken prisoner at Rochelle. That the 
demand for the exclusion of ecclesiastics was peremptor- 
ily urged, and strongly backed by the opinion of the ma- 
jority, is evidenced by the fact that it was immediately 
complied with, and Sir Richard Le Scrope was appointed 
Treasurer in the place of the Bishop of Exeter, and Sir 
Robert Thorpe Lord Chancellor, to supersede the Bishop 
of Winchester, though that prelate stood at the time 
higher than any other subject in the favour and confi- 
dence of the King. This measure was shortly afterwards 
reversed, and ecclesiastical Chancellors continued to be 
appointed up to the sixteenth century ; but its temporary 
adoption by Parliament enables us to measure the change 
which had taken place in the relative strength of the con- 
stituents of that assembly, and in its bearing with respect 
to the King and his ministers. But other influences 
from an opposite quarter contributed to its success. 
While the independence and authority of the Commons 
were advancing with rapid strides, a powerful party with 
a reactionary tendency towards feudalism had made its 
appearance, at the head of which was John, Duke of 
Lancaster, to whose hereditary pride the "professional" 
arrogance of the bishops and their monopoly of political 
and Court influence were alike intolerable. The sequel 
would seem to show that we should be in error in attrib- 
uting statesmanlike or patriotic views to this 
Gaunt and prince ; but he had the good fortune to en- 
list on his side the great John Wiclif, who 
was now beginning the work of his life — the emancipa- 
tion of his country from ecclesiastical tyranny. One 
object they certainly had in common, the "Apostolic 
poverty" of the clergy* Wiclif s position which he here 



I37 1 - Proceedings in Parliament. 237 

took up and vigorously maintained to the end, was this, 
" neither prelates nor doctors, priests or deacons, should 
hold secular offices;" but "now," said he, "benefices, 
instead of being bestowed -on poor clerks, are heaped on 
a kitchen clerk, or one wise in building castles, or in 
worldly business," a manifest allusion to the skill in arch- 
itecture to which the late Chancellor William, of Wyke- 
ham, Bishop of Winchester, originally owed his advance- 
ment. 

Immediately on the appointment of that prelate's suc- 
cessor, a petition was presented with reference to the 
inefficiency of the navy, the condition of which was a 
source of great anxiety to this Parliament 
and to those of the two following years, in State of the 
the first of which it was reduced almost to 
extinction by the disaster at Rochelle. The assembly 
had no intention of mincing matters, and at once laid the 
cause of the decline of the Navy plainly before the King. 
They represented that, in consequence of the withdrawal 
of the franchises of many seaports, they were ruined and 
uninhabited, and the shipping nearly annihilated; that 
merchants were so interfered with in their affairs by 
various ordinances of the King, that they had no 
employment for their ships, and consequently hauled 
them up on the shore to rot; that the masters of the 
King's ships impressed and took the ablest seamen of 
other vessels, which were thus left without persons to 
manage them, so that many of them were lost and their 
owners ruined. It will be seen from this language that 
little distinction was thought of between the mercantile 
and naval marine, and that the efficiency of the one was 
supposed to stand or fall with that of the other. In the 
next Parliament the following petition was presented: — 
"Also pray the Commons, as merchants and mariners of 



238 Edward the Third. a.d. 

England, that (whereas) twenty years since, and at all 
times before, the Navy of the kingdom was in all ports 
and towns on the sea and rivers, so noble.and so plentiful 
that all countries deemed and called our lord the " King 
of The Sea." .... and now that it is so decreased and 
destroyed by different causes that in case of need there 
remains hardly enough to defend the country ... we 
therefore pray, as a work of charity, a suitable remedy.' * 
Edward answered evasively, as was sometimes his wont, 
that " it was the King's pleasure that the Navy should be 
maintained and kept with the greatest ease and profit 
that could be." But a subsidy of no less than ,£50,000 
had already been granted for the reorganisation and 
maintenance of the fleet and the other defences of the 
country. 

The prosperity of the nation and its financial resources 
had fallen to a very low ebb at the commencement of 
this last decade of the reign. Wheat had gone up 100 per 
cent., and stood at a famine price in the year 1369-70. 
Amidst the universal depression and distress the Church 
alone was wealthy and flourishing ; and had in fact re- 
ceived during the last seventy-five years large accessions 
of landed property, illegally, because in violation of the 
" Statute of Mortmain," passed in the reign of Edward I. 
The Parliament, following up its first victory over the 
Church (pp. 235-36), determined that the money now voted 
should be raised by a levy of 22s. 3d. on every parish of 
the kingdom, and that the tax should be taken on all lands 
which, since the eighteenth year of Edward Z, had passed 
into mortmain. Now mortmain, or "dead hand," was an 
expression used with reference to the property of corpo- 
rations, which yielded no personal feudal services, was 
held in perpetual succession, and hitherto exempted from 
ordinary taxation. The intention of the last clause will 



1376. The "Good Parliament. 11 239 

therefore be clearly understood if we bear in mind that 
not only each monastery and chapter, but each bishop 
and rector, was in himself a corporation. The parochial 
estimate was of course founded on the supposition that 
the number of the parishes was about 45,000, the figures 
in fact given by Higden in his " Polychronicon," and the 
enormous miscalculation here made in a statistical re- 
turn of national importance, and apparently of such easy 
verification, must be taken as a warning to receive with 
caution all the recorded statistics of these times, and 
especially those having reference to the amount of the 
revenues of the Church. When steps were taken to give 
effect to the order of Parliament, it was found that the 
parishes were not one-fifth of the number supposed, and 
the tax had to be increased to 116s. per parish, in order 
to produce the required sum. 

The Parliament held in 1376, after an unusual interval 
of three years, — was characterised by such important, 
well-intentioned, and upon the whole bene- 

r A. D. I376. 

ficent legislation, that it afterwards went by The "Good ^ 
the name of the "Good Parliament." In 
order to understand its proceedings it is necessary to 
bear in mind that the King, though but sixty-four years 
old, was now prematurely senile and enfeebled. He 
had lost, five years before, his good, wise, and devoted 
Queen Philippa, and since her death had yielded himself 
more and more to the influence of Alice Perrers, a mar- 
ried woman of great wit and beauty who had been Lady 
of the Bedchamber to the late Queen. Through her 
means the Duke of Lancaster had contrived, 

Influence of 

in the King's incapacity to attend to busi- the Duke of 
ness, so completely to appropriate to him- 
self the royal authority, that he exercised an almost des- 
potic influence in the administration, and appointed all 



240 Edward the Third. a.d. 

his own creatures to the great offices of State. In Par- 
liament he led a strong party, whose avowed object was 
the aggrandisement of the aristocratical element, and the 
curtailment of the privileges already won by the repre- 
sentatives of the people. To this latter, the popular 
party, which must also be called that of the Opposition, 
the Prince of Wales lent his name and influence ; and 
how powerful these were may be inferred from the imme- 
diate reversal, on his death, of many of the salutary 
measures which the Commons had been enabled by his 
aid to pass. For the moment the Duke's designs were 
checkmated. "He feared," says the unknown author of 
a spirited though one-sided contemporary chronicle, "he 
feared the majesty of the Prince, whom he knew to fa- 
vour the knights ; but when the Prince died he abused 
the King's simplicity, and the Prince being dead, the 
effect of the Parliament died with him." Sir Peter de 
la Mare was chosen Vant-parlour, or Speaker, for the 
Commons were determined to have none of the creatures 
of the King or the Duke — and he, "trusting to God and 
standing together with his followers, before the nobles, 
whereof the chief was John, Duke of Lancaster, whose 
doings were always contrary," declared that "though 
the taxes had been heavy on the Commons, now paying 
fifteenth, otherwhiles ninths and tenths, they would take 
in good part, nor gi ieve about it if it had been bestowed 
upon the King's wars, though scarcely prosperous ; but 
it was evident that neither the King nor the realm had 
any profit thereby," and the Commons therefore de- 
manded an open account of income and expenditure. 
"After this," continues the chronicler, "the judges not 
having wherewith to answer, held their peace." But 
when the Duke heard of the proceedings of the Commons 
he thought at first to put them down by bluster." 






1 37 6. Lyons, Latimer, and Alice Ferrers. 241 

" What," cried he, " do these base and ignoble knights 
attempt ? Do they think they be kings or princes of the 
land ? I deem they know not what power I be of. I 
will therefore in the morning appear unto them so glori- 
ous, and will show such power among them, and with 
such vigour will I terrify them, that neither they nor 
theirs shall dare henceforth to provoke me to wrath." 
But his "private men" reminded him that "he knew 
what helpers these knights had to undershore them, for 
that they have the favour and love of the lords, and espe- 
cially the Lord Edward Prince, your brother, who giveth 
them his counsel and his aid effectually." But what at 
last silenced him and brought him to reason was a warn- 
ing, of which he soon after felt the force, that the Lon- 
doners were against him and with the knights, and that 
if the Commons were molested or interfered with the 
people of the city would " attempt all extremity " against 
him and his friends. The Commons then proceeded 
with the work of the session. They peti- 

. 1 m Measures of 

tioned that whereas, " considering the evils the ;'Good 
of the country through so many wars and ar iamen " 
other causes, the officers now in the King's service are 
insufficient for so great a charge," the royal Council 
should be " strengthened by addition thereto of ten or 
twelve bishops, lords, and others to be constantly at 
hand ; and, seeing that the King had been, by the pri- 
vate advantage of some nearer his person, and others 
by their collusion, so impoverished that he had been 
compelled to charge the Commons with subsidy and 
tallage, notwithstanding the great ransoms of the French 
and Scotch kings and other prisoners, they therefore 
prayed him ''that he would do speedy 
justice on such as should be found guilty of 
misappropriating public money." Richard Lyons, a 

R 



242 Edward the Third. A.D. 

merchant of London and one of the Council, was the 
first arraigned. He, " fearing his own skin," tried to 
win over the Prince of Wales by sending him by the 
river a present of 1,000/. in a cask, "as if it had been a 
barrel of sturgeon;" but the bribe was sent back as it 
came, and Lyons convicted and sentenced to be im- 
prisoned during the King's pleasure. Lord Latimer was 
condemned for collusion with Lyons, and the surrender, 
for bribes, of fortresses in Brittany. Several others were 
similarly impeached and convicted, but the last and most 
obnoxious offender was Alice Perrers, against 
Alice whom a special ordinance was directed, 

Perrers. r 

which the helpless King was compelled by 
his now imperious Commons to sign. She had been 
made an object of public jealousy and dislike by the 
King's presenting her with the jewels of the late Queen, 
and permitting her to ride through London on a white 
horse, attired as " the Lady of the Sun," followed by a 
great retinue of lords and ladies. But the charges now 
brought against her were of a more serious character. 
It was stated and proved that she constantly interfered 
with the due administration of justice, sitting on the 
bench with the judges, " and defending and 'maintain- 
ing ' false causes everywhere by unlawful means, to get 
possessions for her own use ; and if in any place she was 
resisted, she went unto the King, by whose power being 
presently helped, whether it was right or wrong, she had 
her desire." The King therefore ordained that "no 
woman shall do so hereafter, and in particular Alice Per- 
rers, under penalty of forfeiting all that Alice Perrers can 
forfeit, and of being banished out of the realm." 

"Edward, Prince of Aquitaine and Wales," had been 
summoned by these titles to the first Parliament which 
met after his return from France ; he seems, however, 



1376- Ambition of John of Gaunt. 243 

to have taken little part in politics before the session of 
1376. But in this first great constitutional struggle in 
which the Commons fairly measured their strength 
against the feudal nobles, the Prince himself, the " mirror 
and type " of feudal chivalry, had descended from his 
vantage ground of birth and privilege ; had taken the 
lead in the noble endeavour to sweep away the abuses 
and corruptions which had well-nigh ruined his country, 
and had been repaid by the most unbounded and en- 
thusiastic affection on the part of the people. The work 
of this portion of his life is, beyond all question, his 
noblest title to fame, though he has been, and probably 
always will be, remembered, not as the leader of the first 
great popular movement of reform within the walls of 
Parliament, but as the hero of Creci and Poitiers. 

The beneficent influence which he exercised is brought 
out in strong contrast by the reaction of the following 
session, when the Duke of Lancaster recovered his pre- 
dominance on the Prince's death. This 
event took place in his forty-sixth year, at Bi eat k p fthe 
the Palace of Westminster, to which he had 
removed in order to be at hand when Parliament was 
sitting. He was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, where 
his mailed effigy may still be seen, with the royal fleur- 
de-lys of France carved on the surcoat of his armour. 

The Duke of Lancaster has not escaped suspicion of 
an intention to supplant Prince Richard, now heir-appa- 
rent to the throne. Richard was at this time but ten 
years old, and the only surviving son of the Black Prince. 
It is said by the anonymous chronicler who has been so 
frequently quoted, that "the Duke, coming in with his 
malefactors among the knights in Parliament assembled, 
earnestly desired them that they, associated with the 
lords and barons, would deliberate who, after the death 



244 Edward the Third. a.d. 

of the King and the Prince's son, ought to inherit the 
realm of England ; and requested that, after the exam- 
ple of France, they would make a law that no woman 
should be heir to the kingdom, for he considered the old 
age of the King, whom death expected in the gates, and 
the youth of the Prince's son," &c. Had this proposal 
been adopted, the Duke, by the exclusion of the female 
offspring of his elder brother Lionel, who died without 
male issue in 1368, would have stood next in the succes- 
sion to Prince Richard; and the chronicler probably 
only expresses the feeling of the time when he hints that 
the life of that young Prince would not have stood long 
in the way. But his ambition to be the first of a royal 
dynasty was not destined to be gratified, though by a sin- 
gular "irony of events," within a few months of his own 
death his son was seated upon Richard's throne. The 
Commons not only refused to entertain his request, but 
took the significant step of requesting that 
Richard * ne ^°Y Pri nce might be presented to Parlia- 

presentedto ment, "in order that the Lords and Com- 

Parhament ' 

as heir to mons might see and honour him as the heir- 

the throne , ,, 

apparent to the crown. 

At Christmas 1377 King Edward formally invested his 
grandson his successor. 

Of the other matters which occupied the attention of 
the " Good Parliament " many were curious or interest- 
ing. They petitioned (it must be remembered that " pe- 
tition" was then the basis of all legislation) that Parlia- 
ments should, "for the correction of errors and falsities," 
be held annually, that "that those persons who put on 
new taxes by their demesne authority, thereby accroach- 
ing to themselves royal power, should suffer judgment 
of life, members, or forfeiture ;" demesne authority being 
that which the lords of manors exercised over the serfs 



1376- Petitions against aliens. 245 

or villains, their tenants at will. This petition shows that 
the ancient right or power of taxing this class which the 
lord undoubtedly possessed or exercised was now openly 
challenged, and regarded as an abuse to be rectified by 
appeal to Parliament. They further prayed that "whereas 
the Priories Alien were filled with Frenchmen, who acted 
the part of spies, all Frenchmen should, while the war 
lasted, be banished the kingdom." The city of London 
represented that their ancient franchises were invaded 
by the residence of foreign brokers in the city. The 
King answered that, if they would put the city under 
good government, no foreigners should be allowed to 
act as brokers, or sell by retail in London and its sub- 
urbs, save his old friends in need, the merchants of the 
Hanseatic League. Other petitions had reference to the 
obstructions of the navigation of the Thames and the 
preservation of the fishery. No less than twelve were 
directed against the encroachments of the Pope and 
the drain of English money by his Court and his crea- 
tures. It was asserted that the taxes raised by the Pope 
in England amounted to five times the amount of those 
levied by the King. "Aliens living in the sinful city of 
Avignon held and farmed out English preferments ; 
aliens who have never seen, and never will see, their 
parishes, by which bad Christians Holy Church is more 
destroyed than by all Jews and Saracens of the world. 
God gave his sheep to be tended, not to be shaven and 
shorn." 

But the "Good Parliament" was no better than its 
predecessors in abstaining from mischievous interference 
with trade and contract. The export of woolen yarns 
for manufacture in Normandy and Lombardy was pro- 
hibited, and the cruel and impolitic Statute of Labourers 
re-enacted, with additional aggravations. 



246 Edward the Third. a.d. 



FIFTH DECADE.— A.D. 1367-1377. 



CHAPTER III. 

FROM THE DEATH OF THE BLACK PRINCE TO THE 
DEATH OF KING EDWARD III. 

The patriotic hopes of the nation collapsed with the 
death of the Black Prince. The King, broken down in 
spirits and worn out before his time by ambitious excite- 
ment, affliction, and failure, had become a mere puppet 
of contending factions. The Duke of Lancaster resumed 
the virtual government of the country and retained it 
until the King's death ; and his baneful influence may be 
traced to the rejection of many of the most reasonable 

and just of the later petitions of the Commons. 
?e e a a thof n ° n He sent the Speaker of the "Good Parlia- 
the Black ment" to prison, released Lyons and the 

other lesser culprits, and permitted the worth- 
less Alice Perrers to regain her place in the King's 
intimacy. William of Wykeham was obnoxious to the 
Duke, partly as a bishop, partly because the Black Prince 
had regarded him with "special affection and singular 

delight," and partly because of the popular 

w l keham P art wnicn ne nad taken in the last Parlia- 
ment. But he, if any, might have seemed 
safe out of the reach of the Duke's vindictiveness: he was 
a man of blameless life, so blameless that one of his 
contemporaries said that his enemies in attacking him 
were "trying to find a knot in a rush." He was of 
humble origin, and had risen by his own merits ; but 



I37 6 - John Wiclif. 247 

there was some ground for Wiclifs innuendo that he 
owed his advancement in the Church to his architectural 
skill; for, though born in 1324, he is known only as 
"surveyor of the King's works at Windsor" till his 
ordination, which is believed to have taken place shortly 
before his first ecclesiastical preferment in 1357. From 
this date he becomes a prominent figure in the history of 
his time. He witnessed the ratification of the treaty of 
Bretigni, became chief of the Privy Council, and in 1366 
Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England. The 
charges now brought against him could not be seriously 
entertained, but the Duke was sufficiently powerful to 
procure his deprival of his temporalities (or revenues of 
office) and banishment from within twenty miles of the 
Court. But though dismissed from the Chancellorship, 
and thus aggrieved and humiliated, the great bishop lost 
nothing, even for the time, of his popularity and moral 
influence, and was pardoned and reinstated at the 
commencement of the next reign. To that reign the rest 
of his history belongs, and with it his great foundations 
of New College at Oxford, and of the first " public school " 
at Winchester ; an institution which has held its place in 
the vanguard of progress for 500 years, and contributed 
perhaps more than any of its younger rivals to smooth 
the steep and rugged pathway by which poverty must 
climb the height of knowledge and distinction. 

A Churchman of a very different stamp was the Duke's 
friend and supporter John Wiclif. Though something 
very like accident, as has been already stated, 
had associated the grave, ascetic, and high- 
souled doctor with the narrow-minded, vicious, and self- 
seeking feudal aristocrat, Wiclif was not born, and never 
could have become, a courtier ; and circumstances made 
him for the greater part of his life a wrestler with printi- 



248 Edward the Third. a.d. 

palities and powers. One idea they certainly had in 
common, that the impoverishment of the clergy would be 
a good thing. 

Much obscurity hangs over Wiclif 's early history and 
circumstances. His birthplace and the date of his birth 
are both uncertain ; we hear of no father or mother, bro- 
ther, sister, or wife. Tradition indeed tells us that he 
was born at " Wye-cliffe," (the "Cliff of the River" 
Swale) near Richmond in Yorkshire, — that he was, in 
1348, a student at Oxford, — a well-known figure, walking 
barefoot in a long gown of red serge, — and that he wrote 
the "Last Age of the Church," under the impression 
produced on his mind by the Black Death, which began 
its ravages in that year. The most recent researches 
which seem to establish the facts of his identity with the 
WyclifTe who was Fellow of Merton in 1356, hitherto 
held, on the authority of Dr. Shirley, to have been a dif- 
ferent person, — and of his having been, not only Master 
(or Warden) of Balliol College and Rector of Fyling- 
ham, in 1361, but also Warden of Canterbury Hall in 

1365. 

The Mendicant Orders were the objects of his first 
aggression on the spiritual despotisms of his day. In 
me Church of the Middle Ages the Blessed Virgin and 

the Saints were the real objects of worship. 
Orders^ 111 ^ oc ^ ^e Father was so ^ ar withdrawn into 

the unsearchable distance, and shrouded in 
clouds of metaphysical speculation, that all ideas of His 
Fatherhood and His love were lost in those of awe, mys- 
tery, or judgment. Christ, indeed, could be approached 
but only by favour of His Court above and the officers 
of His Household below. Of these last, the prelates and 
the clergy of the Church, the former were themselves 
almost inaccessible in their worldly greatness. They 



1376. State of the Church. 249 

rivalled, and in many cases surpassed, the hereditary 
nobles in their wealth and pomp, monopolised the high 
offices of State, and threw their energies into the struggle 
of politics rather than the work of the chief pastor and 
evangelist. The lower clergy aped their superiors as far 
as their means would allow, and though their office 
was still held in honour, they had lost the personal 
respect and confidence of the people by their indolence, 
sensualism, and venality. Throughout the popular liter- 
ature of the times the typical priest is represented as a 
necessary evil, but more to be dreaded in a household 
than a venomous reptile — as a parasite, a hypocrite, a 
glutton, and the chief and habitual corrupter of female 
virtue. It was as a counter-influence to the intensely 
worldly spirit of the secular clergy (as the parish priests 
were called in contradistinction to the monkish fraterni- 
ties) that the famous Mendicant Orders of St. Francis 
and St. Dominic had been established in the preceding 
century ; and their influence had at first been so benefi- 
cent that Grosseteste, the great reforming Bishop of Lin- 
coln was glad to avail himself of their services in England, 
and lent them his name and authority. The " Orders " 
soon began not only to draw to themselves all the 
ability and fervent devotional feeling of the age, but 
to offer the most hopeful career to religious ambition. 
Many ecclesiastics already highly placed forsook their 
dignities, and enrolled themselves among these fraterni- 
ties in the hope of still loftier advancement, for the Men- 
dicants had supplied many bishops and cardinals and 
no less than four Popes, in the last fifty years of the 
thirteenth century. The Orders had become one of the 
great powers of the earth; were deeply tainted with the 
all-prevailing worldliness of the times, and had utterly 
lost the spirit, though they still affected the externals, of 



250 Edward the Third. a.d. 

poverty. Wiclif s soul rebelled against the patent fact 
that the kingdom of Christ had virtually become the 
kingdom of this world, and he threw himself with all the 
passionate earnestness of his nature into the task of 
purifying, elevating, and spiritualising the religion of his 
day, and bringing back a corrupt Church to something 
like the ideal set forth in the New Testament. He pub- 
„, , n lished a little book called the " Poor Caitiff," 

Wiclif5 ,i r 1 r , • , 

first move- a collection of tracts, the purpose of which, 
he says, was " to teach simple men and 
women the way to heaven."* He established a fraternity 
of poor priests who were to go about preaching and 
constantly mingling with the poor ; an institution com- 
bining the discipline and ready obedience of a religious 
order with the individual liberty of action and free de- 
velopment of personal gifts which characterised the first 
lay preachers under John Wesley. These poor priests, 
with their fresh and hearty teaching, their unaffected 
poverty, and their friendly intercourse with the people 
in their perpetual itinerancy, were no doubt the chief in- 
terests in the rapid and extraordinary diffusion of the 
new doctrine. One of Wiclif s bitterest enemies tells us, 
" You cannot travel anywhere in England, but of every 
two men you meet in the road one of them would be a 
Lollard." This was the name given to the followers of 
Wiclif, from a Bohemian word, lolle?i t to sing (or " lull," 
as we have it in our "lullaby"). People laughed at 
them at first as harmless fanatics, but before five-and- 
twenty years were passed they had begun to be martyrs, 
and we find, a century further on, a very grave jest at 
their expense in Erasmus, who expresses a hope that 
cither Lollardism " or persecution would stop before 
winter, for it raised the price of firewood." To attack 
the Mendicants was indeed to disturb a hornets' nest, a 



1376- John Wiclif. 251 

step on which no timid or worldly-wise man would have 
ventured. They were in the habit of selling " shares M 
in masses for the dead, and indulgences and absolutions 
for the living, as Tetzel did a century and a half later in 
Luther's time. " Thus," Wiclif said, "they made prop- 
erty in ghostly goods, where no property may be, and 
professed to have no property in worldly goods, where 
alone property is lawful." The beginning of his strife 
with the Mendicants dates from the time of his residence 
at Oxford, which University had suffered severely from 
their insidious encroachments. They had stirred up the 
scholars to sedition, and seduced them from their col- 
leges into their own monasteries ; and the number of 
students was enormously reduced (it is said from thirty 
thousand to six thousand) by the dread of sending chil- 
dren to a University where they were thus liable to be 
kidnapped. " Freres," says Wiclif, " drawen children 
fro Christ's religion into their private order by hypocrisie 
and lesings .... steling children fro fader and moder." 
But his next appearance was on a wider stage. In 
1366 he found himself embroiled in a controversy in- 
volving the very principles of Papal author- 
ity in England. Owing to the non-fulfilment defends the 
of the conditions of the peace of Bretigni, a taken by 
new war was inevitable, and, in fact, immi- Parliament, 
nent ; and at this juncture Pope Urban V., in the in- 
terests of his French master, put forward a demand for 
the arrears of the Papal tribute of 1,000 marks a year, 
which King John had covenanted to pay in acknowledg- 
ment of his holding England and Ireland as fiefs under 
Innocent III. The claim for tribute had been admitted 
by the feebler Plantagenet kings, but repudiated by the 
first and third Edwards, and Parliament was now sum- 
moned to consider the Pope's demand for the arrears of 



252 Edward the Third. . a.d. 

thirty-three years. It is not too much to say that at this 
time the predominant feeling in Parliament was hatred 
to the Pope, and their re-enactment of the first statute of 
fircemunire a short time previously, placing provisors 
out of the protection of the law, ought to have convinced 
him that they were hardly in a mood to accede to any 
Papal demand, least of all to one the mention of which 
recalled to mind the period of their country's greatest 
degradation. They unanimously resolved that, King 
John having no power to give away his kingdom with- 
out the concurrence of Parliament, the claim fell to the 
ground ; and they promised to stand loyally by the King 
in his resistance thereto. Wiclif was publicly invited to 
defend the course taken in the refusal of the Papal 
" tribute," and startled the orthodox world by laying 
down the novel, but when once stated, incontrovertible, 
doctrine that King and Parliament are supreme in all 
causes over ecclesiastics as well as over laymen. In the 
year 1368 Wiclif published his treatise "De Diminio 
Divino," in the preface of which he unconsciously fixes 
the date of the true commencement of the Reformation 
by declaring that henceforth he would dedicate his time 
exclusively to theology. This resolution, to which he 
finally adhered, was probably not taken till he had des- 
paired of Church reform in its political and social aspect. 
When Wiclif called upon the Pope and the bishops to 
lay aside their purple, to live frugally, watch and pray, 
and "do the work of an evangelist," he carried with 
him the whole heart of the laity; just as, in fact, Grosse- 
teste had done, a century before, when he denounced the 
worldliness of the clergy ; but it must be borne in mind, 
in estimating the boldness and originality of Wiclif s 
work, that up to this time the doctrine of the Church had 
remained for centuries unchallenged, and was received 



1377- Trial and Death of Wiclif. 253 

with unquestioning faith by the mass of the people. 
That doctrine it was the object of his life henceforward 
to purify and reinvigorate, by bringing it back to the 
standard of primitive simplicity ; a task which he set 
about in the spirit of an earnest and courageous, but, it 
must be confessed, a somewhat ruthless controversialist. 

This is not the place to discuss the directly religious 
teaching of Wiclif, which indeed belongs properly to the 
next reign; suffice it to say, in the words of a recent 
biographer, that "there is scarcely any doctrine now pro- 
minently set forth by the Church of England 
which was not insisted upon by him ; scarcely Wichfs 

r J ' J teaching. 

an error against which the Church of England 
practically protests, which Wiclif does not treat in a 
manner which anticipates and justifies our modern 
objections." His positive doctrines may be summed up 
in the assertion of personal responsibility, the supremacy 
of the Scriptures and salvation by faith; his negative 
teaching in the denial of the necessity of priestly media- 
tion, and of all the superstitions which cluster round it, 
especially that of a miraculous change effected by con- 
secration in the elements of the Lord's Supper. It was 
the promulgation of this last "heresy" which united 
King, Lords, and Commons with the exasperated 
hierarchy against him. He was summoned . 

before Convocation at Oxford, and solemnly peiied from 
banished from the University, upon which 
he retired finally to his living at Lutterworth, devoting 
himself, before and after the first attack of that paralysis 
of which he afterwards died, to writing, to pastoral work, 
and to his translation of the Bible. Of that work a 
clerical contemporary of his thus writes : " This Master 
John Wyclyffe hath translated the Bible out of Latin into 
English, and thus laid it more open to the laity and to 



254 Edward the Third, A.D. 

women that can read, than it had formerly been to the 
most learned of the clergy ; and in this way the Gospel 
pearl is cast abroad and trodden underfoot of swine." 
In such language as this prejudice and bigotry could 
speak of an effort which may be said, without exaggera- 
tion, to have for ever " rolled back the stone from the 
_. . well of the water of life." Wiclif died in 

Dies, is . 

buried, and 1 384, and was buried in peace in his own 
churchyard; but thirty years later the 
Council of Constance ordered his remains to be dug up 
and thrown far away out of consecrated ground. His 
body was burned, and the ashes flung into the Swift, 
which runs by the village of Lutterworth. " The brook," 
says Fuller, "did convey his ashes to the Avon; Avon 
into Severn ; Severn into the narrow seas ; they into the 
main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wiclif were an 
emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all the 
world over." 

These events of course took place beyond the limits 

assigned to this narrative ; but Wiclif is the chief figure 

in a stormy scene which closed the political 

A.D. I377. 

Wiclif s history of the reign of Edward III. In Feb- 

ruary 1377 he was summoned to appear be- 
fore Courtenay, the Bishop of London. The charges 
then made against him were of a purely political charac- 
ter, the object of the prosecution being to assail the 
Duke of Lancaster through his principal supporter ; and, 
as Dr. Shirley says, " to proclaim to the world that the 
principles which the Duke was putting into practice against 
the Church were subversive not only of that institution, 
but of society itself." The trial took place in that noble 
Gothic church which, till the Great Fire in 1666, stood upon 
the site of the present St. Paul's. Barons, prelates and 
doctors from all parts of England had taken their seats, 



1377* Death of Edward III. 255 

when a tumultuous mob rushed in and filled every corner 
of the building before Wiclif's arrival, for the trial ex- 
cited the most passionate interest, and the popular feel- 
ing, for some unexplained reason, ran strongly against 
the Reformer. When he took his place before his judges 
the whole of the circle were seated, and he left standing. 
The Earl Marshal, Lord Percy, who had come with the 
Duke to support Wiclif, ordered a seat to be given him. 
The Bishop of London refused, and a fierce dispute arose 
between him and the Duke, the former retaining his tem- 
per and dignity, the Duke "turning red with rage," and 
muttering " that he would drag the Bishop out of the 
church by the hair of his head." The Londoners, over- 
hearing the threat, pressed tumultuously and menacingly 
round their Bishop, and the assembly broke up in the 
utmost disorder. The following day the excitement in- 
creased. The mob rushed to the Duke's Palace of the 
Savoy, beating to death by the way an unfortunate priest 
who had incurred their wrath by stigmatizing the Duke's 
prisoner, Sir Peter de la Mare, as a traitor. The Duke 
himself was absent, so the rioters contented themselves 
with hanging up his arms reversed, like those of a traitor, 
in the principal streets. He meanwhile had fled to Ken- 
nington, and sheltered himself under the popularity of 
the Princess of Wales, who, as the widow of the people's 
friend, the Black Prince, was dear to the heart of every 
citizen. 

King Edward breathed his last on June 21st, in his 
palace at Shene, in the sixty-sixth year of his age and 
the fifty-first of his reign. His "jubilee" 
had been celebrated a short time previously Edwanflll 
and a general pardon granted to all of- 
fenders, with the express exception of William of Wyke- 
ham. It is difficult to read without emotion the brief 



256 Edward the Third. 

description handed down to us of the death-bed of this 
magnificent prince, long honoured as the mirror of chiv- 
alry, and envied as the favourite of fortune. Alice Per- 
rers .remained by his bedside till he began to sink, but, a 
few moments before he breathed his last, she drew the 
jewelled ring from his unresisting finger and left the 
palace. His attendants had dispersed through the rooms 
in search of plunder, and he was left alone to die, when 
a priest entered unbidden, and held up the crucifix before 
his fast-glazing eyes. The King summoned strength to 
thank him, took the crucifix in his hands, kissed it, wept, 
and expired. 



CONCLUDING CHAPTER. 



Part I. — Character of Edward III. and of his 
Reign. 

It is no light task to attempt to form a due estimate of 
the character of King Edward III. He and his gallant 
son have so long been recognized heroes of English ro- 
mance, that it is far easier to join in the chorus of ad- 
miration than to criticise or faintly praise. 

Edward III., from an external point of view, undoubt- 
edly ranked as the foremost man of his time, and always 
bore himself worthily of the great personage 
EdwTnTiii f t * iat ne was - ^ middle stature, but grace- 
fully and strongly built, he had a winning 
address and commanding countenance, a " godlike face," 
the old chronicler says. His training was well adapted 
to fit him for his exalted place, but if we are to believe 



Scholasticist 



257 



that he received an admirable education, the expression 
must be taken relatively ; for in the fourteenth century, 
and long after, the " culture " of a gentleman consisted 
chiefly in the acquisition of such accomplishments as 
breaking a spear and holding a hawk gracefully — riding, 
dancing, dressing, and carving to perfection — but "book- 
learning was left to louts." It would be a bold assertion 
that he could read, write, or speak English. In his youth 
the language of the Court and the feudal castle was ex- 
clusively Norman-French — that is to say, a Frtnchpatois 
only half naturalised in a foreign country, and, in fact, a 
corruption of a corruption; "of which speeche," said 
Chaucer, " the Frenchmen have as good a fantasy e as 
we have in hearing of Frenchemennes Englyshe." He 
was doubtless acquainted with Latin or the barbarous 
jargon which went by the name (a great deal of it being 
no better than English words with Latin terminations) ; 
the use of which was so general, that not only were the 
records and other State papers written therein, but ac- 
counts were kept and political songs composed in Latin. 
As for the origin and history of this language, the poet 
Gower, one of the most learned men of the age, conjec- 
tures that Latin was invented by the old prophetess Car- 
mens ; but that Aristarchus, Donatus and Didymus regu- 
lated its syntax and prosody. The highest geographical 
authority of the fourteenth and following century, Hig- 
den, author of its " Polychronicon," was not acquainted 
with the fact that the earth is a globe ; and, like Herod- 
otus, peopled its unexplored regions with dragons, satyrs, 
and devils. Sir John Mandeville, who had been himself 
a great traveller, tells of Ethiopians with only one foot, 
but that as large as a parasol, "gyants twenty-eight feet 
long, and foul and evil women, who have precious stones 
for eyes, and slay with beholding like a basilisk." 
s 



258 Edward the Third. 

All the best learning and talent of the age were en- 
grossed and absorbed in the childish, unprofitable sub- 
tleties of scholastic speculation, which was then believed 
to be the highest form of intellectual exercise, and about 
which a few words must be said. 

At the latter end of the middle ages very few Europeans, 
even among those reputed good scholars, were acquainted 
with the Greek language. In the twelfth century, how- 
ever, the writings of Aristotle became known in the West 
at third hand, through Latin translations of Arabic ver- 
sions. A mixture of Arabian and Greek philosophy 
rapidly interpenetrated the whole of the theology of 
Europe, and Greek and Arabian terms and dialectics (or 
methods of reasoning) became the forms in which all 
— „ ™ ., theological discussion was carried on. In 

The " Philo- . ° 

sophy of the this treadmill of human thought and inge- 
nuity whole lives were spent and whole 
libraries composed, the single result of which labor has 
been to fill posterity with barren amazement, — an amaze- 
ment such as we feel on beholding the Pyramids, — at 
the stupendous waste of power for no discoverable use. 
Edward was indeed more of a soldier than a scholar, 
and also more of a soldier than of a general. The King 
himself, or his marshals (for he understood the royal art 
of choosing good men), made undoubtedly a happy selec- 
tion of the ground on which to fight the battle of Creci, 
and skillfully disposed the handful of men who were to 
stand up against the great army of France. Even that 
victorious struggle was an example not so much of suc- 
cessful generalship as of the latent capabilities of brave 
men, animated, not depressed, by the sense of danger ; 
— and facing overwhelming odds with the deliberate 
fury of some wild hunted animal who will no longer 
withdraw before his pursuers, but turns to bay at last, 



Character of Edward III. 259 

armed with the tenfold strength of rage and despair, to 
sell his life as dearly as he can. In the battle off Sluys 
Edward fought with the " ferocious courage of the house 
of Anjou," but his campaigns were in most instances 
unprofitable and inglorious ; there is little to show that 
he possessed the higher qualities of a warrior, and to at- 
tempt to rank him with the greatest strategists and cap- 
tains of all time is to provoke an idle controversy. As 
a soldier and a legislator he "looms large" between 
Edward II. and Richard II., but seems a man of ordinary 
stature when measured with the great first Edward or the 
greater first William. He can hardly be called a great 
statesman, but in the absence of any minister of conspic- 
uous ability, he seems to gather up in himself all the 
powers of the administration, and to be the sole exponent 
of the national will. His reign presents a marked con- 
trast to those of his successors, in which the King is lost, 
or distinguishable only by crown and sceptre, amid a 
turbulent crowd of actors. From the day when, as yet a 
boy, he dragged down Mortimer from his pride of place, 
Edward III. was " master of his own house," and no 
subject dared to approach the throne but with bowed 
head and bended knee. 

He understood better perhaps than any other sover- 
eign of his dynasty the great importance of keeping on 
good terms with his people, and almost in every succes- 
sive Parliament he had the credit of making concessions 
to the nation ; but he was in all probability, quite as arbi- 
trary as the most arbitrary of his predecessors. The very 
fact that the Great Charter, and the Charter providing 
against the extension of the "forests," were re-enacted 
and confirmed twelve times in his reign, is sufficient evi- 
dence that they were infringed upon at least an equal 
number of times. Over and over again he pledged 



260 Edward the Third. 

himself to observe the statute of Edward I., " de tallagio 
non concedendo," and not to impose arbitrary taxes on 
the people, but always with some reservation which en- 
abled him, without actual breach of faith, to reimpose 
them under the plea of necessity. He pursued the ob- 
jects of his ambition with a keenness and intensity of 
purpose which often made him forgetful of his kingly 
obligations as well as of the sufferings of his people. 

He was prudent as well as bold, but his prudence had 
a short range, and hardly amounted, like his grand- 
father's, to sagacity, while his measures, dealing with the 
symptoms rather than with the disease, are wanting in 
the character of breadth and permanence. To assert 
that Edward III. did not act upon the true principles of 
political and social science is only to say in other words 
that he was not centuries in advance of his time ; but it 
is difficult altogether to acquit him of the charge (which 
indeed he more than once cynically admitted) of having 
taken measures to increase the revenue of the Crown at 
the expense of the interests of the nation at large. 

He was a genuine Englishman in his rough and ready, 
and often incoherent policy ; in his contempt for foreign- 
ers and his audacious confidence in himself and his 
countrymen ; in his love of manly exertion ; his personal 
pride and popular sympathies, and his freedom from 
lasting enmity and vindictiveness. He might almost 
be called a typical Englishman, were it not for a certain 
love of frippery, fine clothes, and scenic effect, which he 
probably inherited with his French blood. That his 
reign was unusually free from scandals — to which, in- 
deed, the connection of his dotage with Alice Perrers is 
the chief exception — is perhaps mainly due to the ad- 
mirable choice of a wife made for him by his execrable 
mother; for there is little to induce us to believe that, 



i 



Decay of Chivalry and Feudalism. 261 

with all his ceremonial devoutness, he aimed at higher 
purity of life than his contemporaries, in an age when 
all things were condoned to all men, and indeed to all 
women, so long as they kept on good terms with Holy 
Church. He was, it may readily be granted, the embodi- 
ment of the popular idea of chivalry in his time, but 
that ideal was very far removed from the ideal set forth 
by romance in King Arthur and Sir Galahad. We can- 
not, indeed, too warmly admire the nobler features of 
mediaeval chivalry, its discipline, valour, courtesy, devo- 
tion, and respect for the weaker sex ; but the annals of 
the time prove only too clearly and constantly that these 
characteristics were not incompatible with selfishness, 
impurity, greed, class-pride, and vindictiveness — and 
cruelty, or that heartless levity which is the worst form of 
cruelty, to the individual woman. 

Before the end of Edward III.'s reign, chivalry had 
begun to show its first symptoms of decline. The 
marked success of the cautious and unchivalrous tactics 
which Charles the Wise had adopted at the suggestion of 
Duguesclin ; the introduction of new methods 
of fighting, which deprived highly-trained Decay of 

horsemen of their former superiority and 
comparative invulnerability in battle, had all tended to 
bring it into discredit, but it was not doomed to extinc- 
tion for many a long day. Chaucer, indeed, in the 
" Rhyme of Sir Topaz," makes open fun of the chivalric 
histories, and almost anticipates " Don Quixote ;" but it 
was the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth who first exchanged 
the two-handed cross-hilted sword for the rapier, and it 
was another fifty years before chivalry received its 
death-blow, amidst the general laughter of mankind, in 
the immortal novel of Cervantes. Though chivalry had 
unquestionably a large share in the formation of much 



262 Edward the Third. 

that is admirable in our national English habits of 
thought and action, we need waste no regrets over its 
decline and fall. All that was independent of accident 
and circumstance, all that was really worth preserving in 
that splendid but imperfect type of character, survives 
amongst us still, adapted to the altered condition of the 
times, in the ideal of a "gentleman." 

Feudalism and chivalry declined together. The 
cramped and narrow theory of tenure by military service, 
in feudal times the keystone of the social 
f^cTii m system, was giving way before a multitude 

of new and complicated reciprocal relations 
which sprang up with increasing wealth and intelligence 
on the one hand, and the growing necessity of finding a 
broader basis for authority on the other. European so- 
ciety was being reconstructed out of old and simpler 
elements, which had been breaking up and were crumb- 
ling away ; the Catholic Church itself, hitherto the type 
of compactness and immobility, was beginning to feel 
the influences of this remarkable period of transition, in 
the attacks made by bolder spirits on her doctrine and 
discipline. 

The chief interest of the age of Edward III. does not 
lie upon the surface, and its secret is altogether missed 
by the contemporary chronicler Froissart, to whom we 

Character owe suc ^ a mmute anc * spirited, but super- 
istics of the ficial, picture of the reign. Its real glories 
Edward spring not from its gigantic military efforts, 

ln * which only wasted the resources of the coun- 

try, and even when crowned with almost miraculous suc- 
cess, produced absolutely no abiding results ; but from its 
calamities and disasters — from the Black Death, which 
emancipated the English serf, — from the loss of Aqui- 
taine, which at once and forever stamped its insular and 



Characteristics of the reign of Edward III. 263 

independent character upon the English nation and 
monarchy, — from the enormous drain of money which 
constantly brought the King face to face with his people, 
and taught him and his nobles that if a nation is to put 
forth its united strength in the hour of need its rulers 
must learn to take account of the wrongs of the many as 
well as of the rights of the few. It is a striking illustra- 
tion of what has been called "the irony of human 
events," that while from the point of view of the prin- 
cipal actors in the scene, nothing remains of the great 
war for the crown of France but the memory of dazzling 
and unsubstantial triumphs ; its indirect and unforeseen 
effect, — the concessions which it was the means of wring- 
ing from royal prerogative and feudal tyranny, — are felt 
among us to this day, and remain as real, fruitful and 
unalienable accessions to the ever-widening empire of 
human freedom. The interest of the history of the four- 
teenth century is not to be compared with the wonderful 
awakening of Europe, as from a frost-bound winter sleep, 
in the thirteenth, but it possesses a peculiar interest and 
importance of its own. It will indeed be remembered by 
our countrymen chiefly as the age in which their fore- 
fathers proved that Englishmen were the hardest hitters 
in Europe, and won victory after victory against desperate 
odds. It is in vain for cold reason to contend against 
the spell of the names of Creci and Poitiers; they will for- 
ever stir the English heart like the blast of a trumpet or 
the rustling of a consecrated banner ; but these battles are 
not, after all, the true titles of the age to honour. Search- 
ing deeper down we shall find, and thankfully admit, that 
the century was one not of conquest, but of transition, 
development, emancipation, and characterised by a silent 
and gradual contraction of the area of privilege, and a 
corresponding enlargement of the area of liberty. 



264 Edward the Third, 



Part II. — Social Aspects of the Reign. 

On looking into the social condition of the period, the 
first fact which strikes us is that the elements of society- 
were in those days so simple and so few. 

There was first the sovereign, nominally subject to the 
laws, but invested with ill-defined hereditary preroga- 
tives, scarcely diminished from those first 
yielded to William the Norman by a con- 
quered and prostrate country. There was the powerful 
aristocratic class, beginning with the kinsmen and con- 
nections of the King and ending with the 
greater barons, who all held their fiefs or 
estates by barony, or "in chief," from the Crown. These 
constituted "the great men of the land," " les grauntz 
de la terre? 1 as they are constantly called, and like the 
bishops (" les prelatz "), who also held directly under the 
Crown, and certain mitred abbots of monasteries, had 
the right of being summoned personally to Parliament. 
There is a good deal of obscurity still attaching to the 
position of the "lesser barons," as those lords were 
called who could command the services of a number of 
knights holding fiefs under them ; but who, by reason of 
more recent creation, alienation, forfeiture, or subdivision 
of estates, were not in possession of ancient hereditary 
privileges. These the King appears to have summoned 
to Parliament or not, at his discretion. Next in rank 
came the knights bannerets, who, though not 
Kn? hts ennobled, were, like the barons, in posses- 

sion of a plurality of "knights' fees," could 
bring vassal knights into the field ; and were conse- 
quently entitled to cut off the long streamer of the " pen- 
non " of the knight bachelor, and thus convert it into 



Th e Traders. 2 6 5 

the square "banner," as John of Chandos did for the 
first time on the field of Navarrete. To be a " knight," 
even of the lowest class, was to be "gentle," and placed 
a man on a footing of equality in arms with the highest 
noble of the land. But this theory had to a great extent 
given way in this transition period, and enactments were 
not unfrequently made, or renewed, compelling all per- 
sons in possession of a certain income to take up the 
order of knighthood ; partly with a view of securing the 
fees for the King's exchequer, and partly to enable him 
to command their military services with greater speed 
and certainty. Still the knights, whatever their original 
status, looked upon themselves as belonging to the aris- 
tocracy, and shrank from contamination with the trading 
classes, who were often their superiors in wealth, educa- 
tion, and intelligence. It was only in the Parliamentary 
struggle, as has so often happened in practical England, 
that the strong class-feeling yielded to considerations of 
common political interest; for nothing short of a close 
union of forces between the knights of the shires and 
the mercantile representatives of the towns could have 
enabled them to maintain the "war of independence " 
of the fourteenth century against the nobles and the 
Crown. The great English "middle class" was the 
growth of a later age, but no doubt the nu- 
cleus of it was created by the stimulus given £ he d 
to trade and commerce in the reign of Ed- 
ward III. His constant prohibition and removal of pro- 
hibitions on the export of wool, though contrary to all 
sound principles of political economy, were one of the 
chief causes which led to a third, and this time a friendly, 
Continental invasion of Britain ; bearing in some of its 
aspects no less importantly on her future than that of the 
English or of the Normans. For the French Flemish 



•266 Edward the Third. 

weavers, who could not carry on their finer manufactures 
without a regular supply of English wool, came over in 
large numbers and settled on the eastern coasts. They 
were constantly in want of fresh,." hands," and as they 
offered high wages, a continual immigration took place 
from all parts of England to the Norfolk towns, where 
the weavers chiefly established themselves. It became 
their interest to harbour and conceal the fugitive serfs or 
villains, who fled from the forced labour which they were 
compelled to render at home to their lords ; for by a resi- 
dence of a year and a day in any town, a serf acquired 
the right of disposing of his labour when and where he 
pleased. This district of England was already in con- 
stant communication with the northern ports of Europe, 
for Yarmouth, Lynn, and Blakeney were already famous 
emporiums for the "Baltic trade," just then beginning 
to become a highly important interest. Fish being a 
necessary of life in Roman Catholic countries, the com- 
parative failure of the fisheries which had taken place 
en the northern coasts of Europe had induced numbers 
of traders from the Hanse towns in the north of Germany 
to settle on the coast of Norfolk ; in order to export red 
herrings and other dried fish for the wants of the faithful 
in their own old Continental homes. The ships which 
conveyed the herrings thither, brought back supplies of 
tallow and other Baltic produce, especially furs — then 
worn by all persons of a certain rank in England — from 
the unexplored forests of Russia. These traders were 
known by the name of " Easterlings," and an interesting 
evidence perhaps of the character of their trading, cer- 
tainly of the esteem in which their money was held, has 
come down to us in the familiar word "sterling" which 
we apply to coin of known and unquestioned purity, and 
which is now, in fact, appropriated in common usage, to 



The Yeoman and the Villains, 267 

our English coin. In order to realise the close ties which 
united King Edward with Van Arteveldt and the burgo- 
masters of the Hanse towns, we have only to remem- 
ber that the eastern counties were then swarming with 
traders and workers, much in the same way as the 
north-western are at present. The great fair at Stour- 
bridge, now scarcely remembered on the spot, was a 
world-famous gathering in those days, and rivalled the 
great fair of Novgorod in Russia. It lasted three weeks 
in every September. Temporary streets and bazaars 
were erected for the sale of all then known articles of 
commerce. The neighbouring harbours were crammed 
with the ships of every nation, from which had disem- 
barked the Venetians and Genoese, with the produce of 
the far East and their own country, velvets, and silks and 
armour ; the Spaniards, with war-horses and iron ; the 
Norwegians, with their pitch ; the Gascons, with their 
wine ; the Easterlings, with their tallow and furs. This 
tide of importation from abroad was met by another set- 
ting from the interior of England — salt from Worcester- 
shire, lead from Derbyshire ; dairy and farm produce 
brought by the bailiff from many a near and distant 
manor — and the famous English woolpacks which manu- 
facturers from north and south of Europe would bid 
against each other to secure. So prized were sheep of 
the English stock that it was forbidden by law to sell or 
export rams for the improvement of foreign breeds ; but 
there is a tradition that a few of these animals, surrep- 
titiously conveyed over sea, were the ancestors of the 
famous Spanish merinos. The exportation of iron, which 
used to be smelted in Sussex, was forbidden by Act of 
Parliament in 1354. 

Next in the social scale to the opulent and the en- 
terprising trader came the sturdy yeomen, or tenant 



268 Edward the Third. 

farmers, who had for generations held their land in 

free socage, as it was called, either by a fixed 

J he rent, or by service to their lord ; and formed 

Yeomen. J 

the strength of the English army as long- 
bowmen and men-at-arms. Below these came the class 

of villains, or serfs, who could not quit the 
Villains. manor on which they were born, were liable 

to forced labour, had to pay a fine on mar- 
riage or on sending a child to school, or virtually on any 
other occasion which the lord might make a pretext for 
attacking their little hoards. In time of war the serf 
might be impressed, though only a boy of sixteen or a 
man — in those days an elderly man — of fifty or sixty, 
and sent into battle armed only with a quilted jacket, 
skull-cap, knife, and lance, to stand up against the 
"handy stroaks " of knights and men-at-arms carrying 
mail and battle-axe. All that they had to expect was, in 
case of their side being victorious, to rush in and stab 
and rifle the fallen foe ; or, in case of defeat, to be slaugh- 
tered without mercy, adding, perhaps, a cipher, to the 
sum total of the slain. Their cottages were miserable 
huts made of wattle plastered with mud ; often standing 
below the level of the soil, with one apartment only, and 
no chimneys, windows, or ventilation. Their habits 
were filthy. Scurvy and leprosy made fearful ravages 
among them, partly on account of the total neglect of 
the commonest precautions for health and cleanliness, 
and partly on account of their having to go for months 
together without fresh meat or vegetables. It was the 
custom of the times, on the ioth of November in each 

year, to kill off all the cattle not wanted for 

stock, and to salt down the meat for winter 
use. They had, of course, no potatoes, nor any other 
esculent roots except onions, no vegetables except cab- 



Food and Clothing of the People. 269 

bage. Wheat was upon the whole remarkably cheap, if 
we consider the wretched system of agriculture in those 
days ; a penny would purchase six pounds. Meat was 
also cheap ; neither beef nor mutton cost more than a 
farthing a pound ; butter and cheese about a half-penny. 
All this while the lowest rate of wages, even before the 
rise occasioned by the Black Death, was threepence a 
day. Wiclif says that the poor in his time lived longer 
and better than the rich (" melius et diutius vivunt quoad 
corpus"); and the Spanish ambassador of Philip II., 
two centuries later, writes thus to his master: — "these 
peasants live like hogs, but they fare as well as the 
King." Their dress consisted of a rough 
pair of shoes, frequently of untanned leather 
— a pair of galligaskins, breeches of leather, and a frock 
of "russet," or undyed wool, for they were forbidden 
by law to wear a more costly material. The dress of the 
middle class was of much the same make but of finer 
texture, for it was in this particular that the gradations of 
rank were statutably marked. Its cut may be seen any 
day in the alderman's gown, in the dress of the scholars 
of Christ's Hospital, and in Occleve's well-known por- 
trait of the poet Chaucer. The nobles, however, vied 
with each other in the splendour, costliness, and extra- 
vagance of their clothing. Both sexes wore in Edward 
III. 's reign a tight-fitting vest, called a " cotte-hardie" 
from the sleeves of which hung long slips of cloth, and 
over this a large flowing mantle, buttoned at the shoul- 
der, of scarlet or some equally brilliant colour, the edges 
" lagged " (or jagged), and cut in the form of leaves. 
The cotte-hardie was gorgeously embroidered, and the 
whole of the costume was of the most costly and showy 
materials that could be procured. It is said that feathers 
were then first worn in hats. They had small hoods 






270 Edward the Third. 

tied under the chin, and set with gold, silver, and pre- 
cious stones; " liripipes," or tippets, hung round the 
neck and down to the feet, all " dagged." The hose 
were " pied," or parti-coloured, M their shoes and pattens 
sandalled and pinked more than a finger long, bending 
upwards, which they called crakowes, resembling the 
claws of birds, and looped up to the knees with chains 
of gold and silver." Ladies' hair was gathered up and 
confined in a band of gold thread, and there was as 
much freedom in the shape and arrangement of the mass, 
as — prevails at the present time. The head was, how- 
ever, in those days, enveloped in a kerchief (couvre chef), 
the neck swathed in a napkin. Chaucer's description of 
the Canterbury Pilgrims is a repertory of information in 
the dress of his day. He says of the Wife of Bath, sup- 
posed to be a well-dressed woman : 

Her couerchiefs were full fine of ground ; 
I doorste swere they weyeden a pound, 
That on the Sonday were on hire hede. 
Hire hosen weren of fine scarlet rede, 
Full streyte-y-tied. . . . 
Upon an ambler esily she sat, 
Y-wimpled well, and on hire hede a hat 
As brode as is a bokelor or a targe ; 
A fote-mantel about her hippes large, 
And on hire feet a pair of sporres sharpe. 

The great art of the age was architecture. Monasteries 
and abbeys were no longer built, for the taste of the times 
had changed; but manors, hospitals, castles, schools and 
colleges were then erected which modern architects can 

only feebly imitate. The manor house, in 
Architec- which the bailiff frequently lived in his lord's 

absence, may be taken as the typical dwel- 
ling of the period, for the feudal castle differed from 






Domestic Habits. 271 

it only in a multiplication of the same simple arrange- 
ment of elements. It consisted of a central building, with 
an enclosure surrounded b^ a ditch and palings. The 
building itself contained a large hall running up to the 
open tiling of the roof; in which the family and servants 
ate their meals and lived during the day, and the latter 
slept by night, either on the rush-strewn floor or on 
benches round the walls, the garment of the day serving 
for the coverlet at night. A door at one end of the hall 
opened into the chamber or sleeping-room 
of the females of the family and another arrange- 

door at the other end into the stable. In 
smaller houses of this class, cooking, like all other do- 
mestic processes, went on in the hall, but in those of more 
pretension a kitchen took the place of the stable, and a 
" soler," or upper chamber, was built over the sleeping- 
apartment, approached most commonly by an external 
staircase ; and towards the end of the eleventh century 
a parloir (or parlour), so called from being the room for 
" interviews, ,J was added. The hall was the room of the 
house, and in addition to the uses already described, it was 
the place in which small offences were tried and justice 
administered. The manor court, presided over by the 
seneschal, or steward, in the absence of the lord, was 
not unlike the local magistracy of our day. These courts 
exercised police powers in cases of trespass, evasion of 
duty, false weights, and breaches of the peace ; but many 
of them possessed what was known as the " high jurisdic- 
tion," "the right of fossa and furca " — that is, of hang- 
ing male and drowning female criminals. The door of 
the hall generally stood open, in token of hospitality, but 
it was a breach of good manners for the passer-by to 
look in. The hall had no chimneys, and the smoke 
found its way out as it could ; nor was this so difficult as 



272 Edward the Third. 

it might seem, for the roof was very imperfectly fitted, 
and the openings through which light was admitted were 
either unprotected or filled up with a cross-barred grat- 
ing by day and a curtain or shutter by night ; glass for 
windows was unknown except in the palaces of kings, 
and rarely found even in these. The furniture was of 
the simplest kind ; the seats were either slabs in recesses 
of the wall, or boards laid upon trestles. The table, at 
which in the humbler manors the whole household took 
their meals together, was constructed in the same man- 
ner, and removed when not wanted. In the houses of a 
higher class there was generally a dais, or slightly raised 
platform, at the upper end, on which stood a permanent, 
or "dormant" table, for the use of the family and hon- 
oured guests. Two or more "perches," or wooden 
frames, were fixed to the wall, and on one of them sat 
the " domestic birds, hawks, falcons, &c," and on the 
other were suspended articles of clothing of various kinds 
and frequently armour. Another common article of fur- 
niture was the dresser, a series of shelves for exhibiting 
the plate at banquets, frequently so high as to require 
steps to be provided to enable the servants to reach the 
upper shelves. 

Our ancestors in the fourteenth century kept early 
hours. It was the custom to rise with the sun, and we 
read of a party who are ridiculed as having overslept 
themselves when found in bed at six. The usual dinner- 
hour was nine in the morning. The family 
were summoned to it by the blowing of 
horns, and the first step after assembling in the hall for 
meals, was washing the hands, for which purpose each 
guest was served with a basin, ewer and towel. It was 
not till after the guests were seated round the table that 
the cloth was laid ; on it were then set the saltcellars, 



The Jongleurs. 273 

knives, occasionally spoons, and bread, and cups of 
wine. There were no forks nor plates. The fingers 
were thought to answer all the purposes of the former, 
and instead of the latter, each couple of guests had be- 
tween them a large tranchoir (or trencher) ; that is to 
say, a thick fiat slice of bread of second quality, on 
which a portion of fish or meat sufficient for two was 
laid, and on which it was carved, the gravy, as a rule, 
running through upon the table-cloth. As soon as the 
course was finished, the trenchers were thrown into the 
alms-basket for the use of the poor. At the conclusion 
of the meal the table was removed, basins and ewers 
were a second time supplied for washing the hands, 
which doubtless was by this time again necessary, and 
cups of wine were handed round to the guests, still sit- 
ting as at dinner, after which the minstrels were intro- 
duced. The minstrels, or "jongleurs" (so called from 
a corruption of "jougleurs," joculatores, our "jug- 
glers "), were an important class in the Middle Ages, and 
an indispensable element at a festival. 
They led a life of perpetual wandering, and The leurs 
were always welcome, partly for their art's 
sake, and partly for the sake of the news which they 
brought, for news was then a scarce commodity. If the 
after-dinner guests were in a serious mood, the jongleurs 
would sing old romances of love and chivalry ; if they 
found the company mirthfully disposed, they sang sati- 
rical and political songs, or related amusing stories, or 
exhibited feats of tumbling and sleight of hand ; and 
their tales, songs, and performances were often of a 
character which painfully illustrates the coarse licen- 
tiousness at this time pervading all classes of society. 
The fourteenth century was not a busy or industrious 
age — people who lived in the country were in no hurry 

T 



274 Edward the Third. 

to break up the social gathering ; and "after the meal," 
says a contemporary romance, " they then go to play as 
each likes best, either in forests or on rivers (that is, 
hawking, for water-fowl, such as the heron and the teal, 
were the chief "quarry," or prey, of the hawk), — or in 
amusements of other kinds .... chess, tables, and 
dice." The evening meal was at five o'clock, after 
which, we are told, the family usually went to bed, for 
artificial light was bad and dear. Wax was used only 
in palaces and churches, and even tallow was two pence 
per pound, an enormous price. A candle 
Candles and offered at the shrine of a saint was in the 

fuel. 

truest sense an oblation, "for it cost the 
bearer the sacrifice of a rare personal pleasure." Wood 
fires were almost universal ; charcoal indeed was occa- 
sionally used in the dwellings of the rich, but coal ap- 
pears to have been employed for smelting purposes only. 
Reading was no common accomplishment, and books — 
being, of course, still written with the hand, — were few, 
and beyond the reach of all but the richest ; and the 
chief intellectual entertainment of well-to-do persons 
was to listen to the songs or recitations of the professional 
jongleurs, or those of amateurs belonging to their own 
class who were well versed in such lore. 



Part III. — Language and Literature. 

As has been already said in other terms, Latin was 
the language of business, and French the language of 
society. In the earlier part of the reign of Edward III. 
graver works were composed in Latin, but all the higher 
literature was in French, and in subject and form, a close 
imitation of French originals. The chivalrous romance 
and the legends of martyrs, and the " fabliaux," or 



Progress of the English Language. 275 

rhyming tales, had given way to the now universal pas- 
sion for allegorical poetry, in which the characters intro- 
duced were impersonations of virtues and vices ; such as 
was the "Romance of the Rose," by the translation of 
which Chaucer first gained the ear of the people. Up to 
the beginning of the fourteenth century the supremacy 
of the French language in England had been almost 
unchallenged. Its introduction was by no means due to 
the Norman Conquest, though that event undoubtedly 
gave it a new impulse, — for it had been the Court lan- 
guage of Edward the Confessor. It is said that William 
the Conqueror tried to learn English, but his successors 
made no such attempt. The Trouveres who sang in the 
rugged Langue d'Oil found especial encouragement at 
Court from the two queens of Henry I., and during the 
long succession of the earlier Angevin sovereigns, who 
were to all intents and purposes Frenchmen, the royal 
influence was favourable to the growth of French. The 
two Eleanors whom Henry II. and Henry III. brought 
from the south of France, carried with them the soft Pro- 
vencal, the Langue d'Oc, of the Troubadours, and in the 
reign of the last-named sovereign, such was the undis- 
guised preference of the Court for everything French, 
and such the consequent influx of adventurers of that 
nation, that the ancient English element in the people 
seemed a second time threatened with helotry or extinc- 
tion. 

But all this time the English language had survived. 
The Saxon Chronicle comes to an abrupt 
conclusion in the reign of King Stephen, English 

but about a century and a half before the 
reign of Edward III. the vernacular again crops up, 
mingling in grotesque incongruity with the Latin of the 
"Mystery" plays; the less dignified scenes of which, 



276 Edward the Third. 

were sometimes in the vulgar tongue, while the more 
stately " spectacle " continued to be given in Latin. It 
was, and always had been, the language of the common 
people, and had consequently undergone a deteriora- 
tion in purity and structure analogous to that of the 
Lingua Romana rustica spoken in the Roman provinces 
under the Empire ; in which process prepositions took 
the place of inflections for case, and auxiliaries the place 
of inflection for voice and tense. It is possible that, to 
complete the parallel, there existed, side by side with the 
degraded Saxon, a literary and inflected English lan- 
guage ; but, be this as it may, the time was now come 
for its revival as a national tongue, and the 
nadonaf & speech of our forefathers, as well as their 
tongue. ecclesiastical and civil polity, was to feel the 

developing and renovating influences of the age. It is 
not a little remarkable that the language and the free in- 
stitutions of England should have thus grown up together. 
The name of Wiclif is closely associated with both move- 
ments, and though his fame as the "day star of the Re- 
formation " has thrown somewhat into the shade his liter- 
ary achievements, it must never be forgotten that his 
influence as a reformer was mainly due to his English 
translation of the Scriptures ; and that in his controver- 
sial attack upon the strongholds of superstition and 
priestly monopoly he had, as it were, to forge the weapon 
with which he fought. But it was not till the century 
was entering its fourth quarter, and the reign of Edward 
III. was drawing to a close, that Wiclif 's English writ- 
ings became generally known ; and long before that 
time we have abundant proof that English was taking 
the place of French, wrestling with it, and overcoming it. 
Higden, already mentioned as a "literary man " of this 
century, tells us, writing before the beginning of the 



French gives way to English. 277 

French war, that in his time boys at school, "against 
the usage and manner of all other nations, be compelled 
to leave their own language and to construe their Latin 
lessons and their things into French." His translator 
Trevisa, who lived at the latter end of Edward III.'s 
reign, in commenting on this passage, tells us that it was 
not so then : " in all the gramer scoles children leveth 
Frensche, and lerneth an Englyshe." In the memora- 
ble year 1362 it was decreed, in a statute itself worded in 
French, that henceforth the proceedings in the law courts 
should be conducted in English, the reason given being 
that "the French tongue is much unknown in England." 
Three years later the Lord Chancellor opened Parliament 
in an English speech. But in its growth and develop- 
ment language follows laws of its own, irrespective of 
artificial stimulants or checks. During the long struggle 
against the domination of foreigners in England which 
took place in the reign of Henry III., a complete fusion 
had been effected between the Norman and English ele- 
ments of the race. The far-sighted measures of Simon 
de Montfort had united the nobles with the commonalty 
by giving them each a common voice in legislation ; and 
the great French war in Edward III.'s reign, by the 
self-reliance which it engendered and the antipathies 
which it fostered, stamped forever upon the English na- 
tion its insular, united and independent character. It 
began to be felt, not consciously perhaps, but instinct- 
ively, that the time was come for England to have a lan- 
guage and a literature of her own, and Chaucer, like 
other men of genius, seized upon and gave expression to 
the feeling of the age. In his " Testament of Love " he 
thus "apologises" for writing in English: — "Let, then, 
clerks enditen in Latin, and let Frenchemen in their 
Frenche also enditen their quaint terms, for it is kindely 



278 Edward the Third. 

to their mouths, but let us show our fantasyes in such 
wordes as wee learneden of our dames tongue." But 
some twenty years before the appearance of 
Chaucer's great work, " The Canterbury 
Tales," "The Vision of Piers Ploughman " had become 
the delight of the English people. This may fairly be 
called the first genuine English poem, for we had before 
it only the dreary versified histories of Wace and Rob- 
ert of Gloucester, more prosy than prose itself, and Nor- 
man rather than English. The " Vision " dates from 
the year 136$. Tradition gives the author a name, Rob- 
ert Langland, and a birthplace, Cleobury Mortimer in 
Shropshire ; and he is also said on the same doubtful 
authority to have been a secular priest, or, as we should 
say, a country parson. He wrote in the words and 
idioms and the " alliterative " measures of the old Anglo- 
Saxon poetry, perhaps still familiar to the people's ear, 
but in the plan of his poem he had adopted the alle- 
gorical impersonations of the Trouveres. Alliteration, or 
the stringing together of words or syllables beginning 
with the same letter, is his only poetical artifice ; as for 
rhyme, he discards it altogether. In tone and sentiment 
and independence of thought, as well as in diction and 
subject-matter, this extraordinary work is thoroughly 
English, and breathes the fresh, bracing air of the Mal- 
vern Hills among which the Ploughman fell asleep to 
dream his Dream. He is always in deep, not to say in 
grim earnest ; he finds the times out of joint, full of 
contrasts and contradictions, — 

And Marvellously Me Met, as I May you tell, 
All the Wealth of the World and its Woe both ;— 

the world lying in wickedness, misery, and corruption, 
and the Church, which should be the salt of the earth, 



Chaucer and Wiclif. 279 

among its chief corrupters, more worldly than the world 
itself. It was he who commenced the great revolt ; in 
asserting the supremacy of reason, conscience and Holy 
Scripture as the guides of faith and conduct, he under- 
mines the sacerdotal claim to the direction of the inner 
life of man. Penances and Pilgrimages are nothing 
worth in comparison of Charity, which, with St. Paul, he 
held to be greater than faith, and an image of the mercy 
of God, of which he says, 

" All the Wickedness of the World that Man Might Work or think, 
Is no More to the Mercy of God than in the Sea a Glede " (spark.) 

Poverty he loves, but it is honest, hard-working poverty, 
not the ostentatious, professional poverty of the Mendi- 
cants. Yet he is no precursor or forestaller of Wiclif in 
Wiclif s greatest work, for he never attacks the doctrine 
of Papacy, but only its social and political abuses : — 

God amend the Pope, that Pilleth holy Church, 

And Claimethby force to be King and Keeper over Christendom. 

A striking contrast to this half-mythical and impersonal 
Langland was Geoffrey Chaucer, the other and greater 
poet of the age. Passing his days in the thick of the 
interests, the business, and the pleasures of 
the world, ambassador, courtier, traveller, 
place-hunter; tried by all vicissitudes of fortune, now 
living in splendour, now hard pinched for his daily 
bread, now in disgrace and in prison, now again restored 
to royal favour — he " saw life " in all its many-sided and 
many-hued variety, and reproduced his impressions in 
undying colours in the picture-gallery of " The Canter- 
bury Tales." There is a tradition that Chaucer, Frois- 
sart, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, met together at Milan, 
at the marriage of Prince Lionel with the daughter of the 



280 Edward the Third. 

great Vesconti. Be this as it may, Chaucer was familiar 
with the writings of the two Italians, and also with the 
"Vision M of Dante, who had died some sixty years be- 
fore our English poet wrote his great work ; and he was 
well acquainted with all the local and vernacular litera- 
tures which were everywhere springing up in the lan- 
guages derived from the romance.. Latin. He borrowed 
from the Norman "romaunts," from the ancient classics, 
from the popular legends ; but his real sympathy is with 
the spirit and genius of his own times, and in those por- 
tions of his works which are of most enduring interest he 
drew upon his own varied experience for his materials. 
Thus, though " The Canterbury Tales " first appeared 
some years after the death of Edward III., they may be 
taken as illustrating the social life of the latter half of the 
fourteenth century ; and there is hardly one of its phases, 
hardly an age or condition, which Chaucer has not fixed 
for ever in that comedy of manners. In his power of 
creating a character at once the type of a class, and a 
living, breathing individual ; in the variety of his gifts, 
in the pathos, the humour, the brightness, the fanciful- 
ness, the profusion of his genius, he is second to one 
only of his countrymen, and no unworthy precursor of 
the golden age of English poetry ; — being, indeed, in the 
words of Tennyson : — 

the first warbler, whose sweet breath, 
Preluded those melodious bursts, which fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
With sounds that echo still. 

As the plays of Shakespeare are to " The Canterbury 
Tales," so is the prose of Milton and Bolingbroke to the 
rugged, and half-formed, but vigorous, massive, and pa- 
thetic language of Wiclif. It might be hard to name 



Chaucer and Wiclif. 281 

two men more unlike in work, character, and circum- 
stances than the contemporary Fathers of English poetry 
and English prose, but there is one point at which the 
two are in sympathy, one ideal at least is common to 
them both. The picture which Chaucer left us of the 
Parish Priest as he should be, entitles the poet to claim 
spiritual kindred with the great reformer. That portrait 
might have been drawn to the life from Wiclif himself ; 
not the stormy Wiclif of his early controversial days, 
but the lowly, subdued, and tender pastor of the village 
flock of Lutterworth. 



i:a<; mum ■ ' ■■ ., . prance 




I 






INDEX. 



AAC 

AACHEN, 52, no 
Abbeville, 112, 114, 120 
Acts of Parliament (see Parliament) 
Adrianople, 50 
Adriatic, 7, 49 
Africa, 46 
Agace, Gobin, 112 
Agenois, 34, 40, 65, 224 
Aiguillon, 106, 125 
Airaines, 112 

Aix-la-Chapelle (see Aachen) 
Albret, Lord of, 217 
Alen9on, Counts 01, 40, 117 
Alfonso X., 156, 197 
Alfonso XI., 197 
Alliances, 4, 44, 56, 62, 67, 94, 101, 

227 
Alliteration, 278 
Almohades, 46 
Alps, 49, 52 
America, 52 
Amiens, 38, in, 120 
Amurath, 5, 50 
Andalusians, 220 
Angoul6me, 105, 106, 222 
Anjou, county of, 191 
Anjou, Duke of, 192, 193, 219, 224 
Anjou family of, 42, 80, 259 
Annan, 29 
Antwerp, 66, 67, 69 
Aquitaine, 34, 37, 39, 40, 43, 65, 101, 

104, 195, 205, 226 
Aquitaine, Duke of, 46, 195, 227 
Arabic, 258 

Aragon, 46, 90, 200, 203 
Archers, 26, 31, 71, 72, 82, 97, 108- 

112, 117, 122, 124, 167, 170, 203, 

268 
Archipelago, 47 
Architecture, 102, 270 



BAN 

Armour, 10, 165, 170, 223, 265, 267, 

272 
Aristotle, 258 

Arms of England, 39, 73, 222 
Arms of France, 73, 74, 222, 242 
Army, English, 30, 72, 268 
Army, French, 178 
Arques, 83 

Arteveldt, 55, 57, 61, 73, 102, 103, 267 
Arthur, King, 138, 261 
Artois, county of, 160, 173, 230 
Artois, Robert of, 55, 70, 83, 94, 98 
Arundel, Earl of, 114, 118 
Asia Minor, 47 
Astrology, 72 
Athens, 143 
Athens, Duke of, 171 
Auberoche, 105 
Auckland, Bishop's, 123 
Audley, Sir James, 175 
Auray, 97, 196 
Austria, 52, 53 
Austria, Duke of, 53, 61 
Auvergne, 166, 231 
Avelon, Isle of, 148 
Avignon, 42, 48, 100, 141, 159, 180, 

193, 198, 245 
Avon, River, 254 
Azincourt, 162 



BACH, Anthony, 80 
Bachelors, Knights, 58 
Bacon, Roger, 128 
Balearic, Isles, 203 
Balliol College, 248 
Balliol, Edward, 3, 25-33, 9°> 1 ^° 
Balliol, John, 15 
Baltic, 5, 50, 51, 266 
Bannerets, 264 



284 



Index. 



BAN 

Bannockburn, 9, 33 

Barcelona, 199 

Barnes, 225 

Barons, 17, 23, 28, 60, 72, 156, 264 

Bavaria, 53 

Bayonne, 40, 104, 227 

Beaumont, Lord, 26 

Beauvais, 112 

Beggars, 148, 149 

Benedict, XII., 42, 48, 65, 68, 73, 74 

Bergerac, 104, 166 

Bergues, 127 

Berkeley Castle, 16 

Berkeley, Sir T., 22 

Bern, county of, 230 

Berri, Duke of, 192, 193, 224 

Berwick, 30, 32, 154, 159-61 

Beverley, 9 

Bible, 252, 276 

Bishops, 12, 14, 18, 28, 32, 61, 72, 85, 

87, 100, 236, 249, 264 
Black Agnes, 91 

Black Death, 2, 140-148, 262, 269 
Black Prince, (see Edward B. P.) 
Black Sea, 50 
Blakeney, 266 

Blanch of Bourbon, 156, 197 
Blanch of Lancaster, 201 
Blanche Tache, 112 
Blankenberg, 81 
Bio is, Charles of (see Charles of 

Blois) 
Blois, county of, 166, 196 
Boccaccio, 148, 279 
Bohemia, 4 
Bohemia, Charles and John of (see 

under Charles and John) 
Bois de Vincennes, 40 
Bolingbroke, 280 
Books, 63, 263, 274 
Bordeaux, 64, 104, 125, 158, 159-61, 

175, 199, 224, 229, 231 
Borrowing Money, 13, 67, 79 
Bouchier, Sir R., 85 
Bourbon, Duke of, 193 
Bourg la Reine, no 
Brabant, 52, 53, 56, 57, 66, 230 
Brabant, Duke of, 37, 57, 70, 73, 103 
Brandenburg, Margrave of, 70 
Brest, 93 
Bretigni, peace of, 191, 195, 198, 

217, 247 
Brigands, 138 (and see Companies) 
Bristol, 146-54 
Brittany, 46, 92-96, 98, 162, 191, 

222, 230, 231 
Brittany, Duke of, 222, 230 



CHA 

Brokers, 245 

Bruce, David, 15, 24, 28, 71, 90, 92, 

I2 3, !35, 160, 161, 177, 194, 215 

227. 
Bruce, Edward, 211 
Bruce, Robert, 8, 9, 13, 14, 24 
Bruges, 103, 232 
Brussels, 57, 72 
Buch, Captal de, 167, 175, 185, 196, 

203, 222, 229 
Bulgaria, 50 
Burgos, 204 
Burgundy, 46 

Burgundy, Duke of, 46, 222 
Burnt Candlemas, 160 



CADSAND, 61, 97 
Caen, 108, 122 
Calais, 2, 72, 121, 127, 133, 160, 189, 

193, 206, 222, 231 
Calverly, 198, 222 
Cambrai, 68, 70, 73, 91, 97 
Cambridge, Earl of, 225, 227 
Camoens, 199 
Campaigning, English, 67, 72, 161, 

188 
Campaigning, French, 72, 222, 230 
Campaigning, Scotch, 9, 30, 160 
Cannon, 115, 128 
Canon Law, 48 
Canterbury Cathedral, 86, 243 
Canterbury Tales, 270, 2.78, 279 
Capet, Hugh, 36, 46 
Cardinals, 61, 64, 65, 134, 168 
Carinthia, 52, 70 
Carlisle, 9 

Carving, 97, 257, 272 
Cassel, 38, 83 
Castile, 47, 156, 197, 221 
Castle Rising, 22 
Castro, Fernando de, 199, 221 
Cathay, 140 
Cerda, de la, 151, 197 
Cervantes, 261 
Cervolles, A. de, 180, 193 
Challenges, 9, n, 34, 56, 70, 83, in, 

129, 160, 193 
Chalons, 185 
Chalons, Bishop of, 169 
Champagne, 46 
Chancellors, 85, 89, 236 
Chamios, John of, 115, 157, 171-5, 

200, 204, 217, 220, 222, 223, 265 
Channel, English, 60, 66, 84, 127, 

208, 215, 229 
Channel Islands, 37, 44 



Index. 



285 



CHA 

Chantonceaux, 94 

Chargny, de, 138, 170, 172 

Charlemagne, 52, 201 

Charles IV. of France, 4, 10, 34, 35 

Charles V. (the Wise) of France, 

previously Duke of Normandy, 

and first Dauphin, 164, 169, 171, 

175, 178, 180, 181, 196,202, 217,226 
Charles, King of Navarre, 36, 75, 

158, 164, 165, 180, 181, 186, 196, 

200, 227 
Charles of Blois, 92, 94, 97, 125, 158, 

180, 191, 196 
Charles of Bohemia, 4, no, 119,: 135 
Charles of Spain, 156, 159 
Charter, Great, 7, 85, 87, 259 
Charter of the Forests, 259 
Chartres, 165, 191 
Chatillon, 190 

Chaucer, 269, 270, 275, 277, 279 
Chauvigny, 166 
Cherbourg, 158-9 
Chester, 78 
Chimneys, 272 
Chivalry, 1, 5, 8, 64, 83, 129, 177, 

196, 200, 202, 260, 261 
Church, 48, 145, 152, 239, 245, 248, 

252, 261, 262 
Church, last age of, 248 
Cinque Ports, 59, 77 
Clarence, Lionel, Duke of, 123, 213, 

218, 244 
Class Parliaments, 77 
Clement VI., 38, 98, 100, 134, 141, 

145, 159 
Cleobury Mortimer, 278 
Clergy, 28, 60, 65, 78, 137, 249 
Clermont, 184 
Coal, 134, 208, 274 
Coblentz, 69 
CochereL 196 

Colloquies, Parliamentary, 77 
Columbus, 52 
Commerce, 5, 44, 59, 74, 76, 135, 

207, 265 
Commons, 14, 22, 28, 59, 63, 75, 78, 

99, 122, 152 236, 240, 243, 244, 277 
Companies, 178-80, 187, 188, 193, 

198, 201. 216, 220 
Connaught, 212 

Constance of Castile, 199, 200, 227 
Constantinople, 50, 141 
Cordova, 47 
Corfe Castle 18 
Cornwall, 147 
Cornwall, Duke of (see Edward, 

Black Prince) 



EAT 

Corsica, 48 

Cortes, 163 

Corvara, 68 

Coupland, Sir John, 124, 176 

Courtenay, Bishop, 254 

Creci, 2, 71. Battle of, 113-21, 138, 

174, 263 
Croxton, Abbey of, 147 
Crusades, 41, 46, 47, 49, 51 
Cumberland, 9 

Curia Romana, 48, (Papal Court) 
Customs, 14, 60 
Cyprus, 47, 141 
Cyprus, King of, 215 
Cyrus, 11 
Czechs, 53 



DANTE, 280 
Danube, River, 53 
Dauphin, 164 
David II. of Scotland, 25, 28, 92, 

123, 177, 215, 227 
De Burghs, 212, 214 
Decades, 2 
Decameron, 142 
Demesne, 244 
Denmark, 51 
Derby, 267 
Derby, Earl of (see Lancaster, 

Duke of) 
Despensers, 7, 19 
Devon, 147 
Diet, 69 

Dieu et mon droit, 73 
Dominio Divino, de, 252 
Dordogne, River, 104, 166 
Dorset, 146 

Douglas, Sir Archibald, 31 
Douglas, Sir J., 9, 10, n, 12, 27 
Douglas, Sir W. (Knight of Lid- 

desdale), 91, 123 
Dowry, 7, 218 
Drapers, 209 
Dress, 136, 156, 257, 269 
Dukedom, 159 
Dunbar, 32, 90 
Dunfermline, 26 
Dupplin Moor, 27 
Durham, 9, 10, 78 
Dwellings, 64, 268-70 



EARN, River, 26 
Easterlings, 266, 267 
Eastern Empire, 5, 50 
Eating, 272-74 



286 



Index. 



EBR 

Ebro, River, 203 

Eclipse, 91 

Edinburgh, 32, 84, 92, 161 

Education, 257, 265, 277 

Edward, Confessor, 275 

Edward I., 3, 14, 23, 30, 76, 231, 259 

Edward II., 7, 8, 15, 34, 212, 213, 

259 

Edward III., his accession, 6 ; coro- 
nation, 7; war with Scots, 8-13; 
admits independence of Scotland, 
14 ; marriage, 16 ; birth of son 

•and heir, 19; begins to govern, 
20; invades Scotland, 30; claims 
French crown, 34 ; does homage 
for Guienne, 38 ; negotiations 
with Flanders and Brabant, 56; 
his first invasion of France, 66 
confers with the emperor, 69 ; his 
second invasion of France, 80; 
wins battle of Sluys, 81 ; im- 
peaches Stratford, 86; deceives 
parliament, 87 ; invades Brittany, 
98 ; builds Round Table at Wind- 
sor, 101 ; confers with Flemings, 
102 ; his third invasion of France, 
107; fights battle of Creci, 114; 
takes Calais, 132 ; repeoples it, 
133 ; refuses Imperial crown, 135 ; 
establishes Order of the Garter, 
137; repels attempt to recover 
Calais, 138 ; wins the sea-fight ol 
L'Espagnols sur mer, 155 ; in- 
vades Scotland, 161 ; his recep- 
tion of King John of France, 1 76 ; 
his fourth invasion of France, 
188; peace of Bretigni, 190; sanc- 
tions Spanish expedition of the 
Black Prince, 199 ; splendour of 
his reign, 134, 215 ; his last inva- 
sion of France, 229 ; death, 2^5 ; 
character, 37. 80, 177, 256; policy 
( see Policy, English) 

Edward, Black Piince (Duke of 
Cornwall), 16, 19, 64, 65, 73, 103, 
107, 113, 118, 121, 139, 140, 155, 
158, 161-77, 178, 191, 195, 199-05, 
216, 221, 223, 225, 240-44. 

Edward of Angoul6me, 195 

Egide, Hans, 51 

Egypt, 142 

Elbe, River, 52 

Eleanor of Aquitaine, 189, 191 

Eleanor of Castile, 197 

Eleanor of England, 40 

Elizabeth, Queen, 261, 280 

Eltham, 40 



GEN 

Emperor, 4, 48, 52, 90 

Empire, 52, 53, 67, 135 

— Eastern, {see Eastern Empire) 

English language, 257, 274, 275 

Epoch, character of, 3, 262 

Ethiopians, 257 

Evreux, 158, 181, 196 



FABLIAUX, 274 
Famosus Libellus, 86 
Feathers, 121, 269 
Fecamp, Abbott of, 38 
Ferdinand de la Cerda, 156 
Ferdinand III. (Saint), 47 
Feudalism, 5, 40, 70, 73, 82, 236, 262 
Fez, 47 
Fiefs, 4, 28, 37, 38, 40, 42, 46, 53, 

.57, 69 
Fish, 152, 154, 161, 209, 245, 266 
Flagellants, 145 
Fleet, English, 43, 44, 58, 62, 65, 

76, 77, 121, 127, 159, 161, 215, 216, 

237 
Fleet, French, 33, 44, 65, 121, 129, 

230, 235 
Fleet, Spanish, 156, 157, 159, 228, 

235 
Flemings, 37, 55-7, 63, 73-5, 102, 

103, no, 126, 191 
Florence, 13, 49 
Food, 238 
Fores tallers, 153 
Forth, Frith of, 32 
France, 3, 6, 16, 35, 46, 53, 138, 140, 

186, 192, 232 
Franks, empire of, 52 
Frederick of Austria, 53 
French language, 257, 276 
Froissart, 71, 95, 130, 139, 170, 176, 

262, 279 
Fuel, 274 
Fuller, 224, 254 
Furniture, 272 
Furs, 52 181, 266 
Fylingham, 248 



GABELLE, 164 
Galeazzo Vesconti, 192, 218 
Games, 24, 194, 210, 214, 268, 274 
Garter, Order of, 137 
Gascons, 104, 161, 173, 176, 198, 201, 

267 
Gaunt, John of, 75, 201, 227, 230, 

236, 240, 246, 254 
Geneva, Lake of, 54 



Index. 



2S7 



GEN 

Genoese, 43, 66, 8o, 82, 94, 113, 117, 
12S, 174, 267 

George III., 222 

George IV., 8 

Germany, 4, 53, 67, 145 

Ghent, 55, 74, 103 

Ghibellines, 48 

Gibraltar, Straits of, 47 

Gideon, 12 

Glass, 272 

Glastonbury, 148 

Gloucester, Robert of, 278 

Godemar du Fay, 112 

Goldsmith, 214 

Goldsmiths, 209 

Gossipred, 154, 213 

Gournay, 22 

Gower, 257 

Granada, 41, 47, 198, 199 

Gravelines, 127 

Greece, 4 

Greek fire, 166 

Greek language, 258 

Greenland, 51, 141 

Gregory VII., 68 

Gregory XI., 231 

Grievances, redress of, 30, 77, 78, 
89, 122, 243 

Grosseteste, Bishop of, 249, 252 

Guelders, Count of, 58 

Guelfs, 48 

Guernsey, 98 

Guesclin, Du, 195, 198, 202, 204, 
220, 224, 229, 261 

Guienne (see Aquitaine) 

Guilds, 56, 209 

Guipuzcoa, 201 

Gunpowder, 128 (se& also Can- 
non) 

Guy de Penthievre, 92 

Guzman, Leonora de, 197 



HAINAULT, Countess of, 84 
Hainault, William of, 15 
Hainault, William of (son of above), 

7 1 - 
Hainault, Sir John of, 13, no, 118 
Halidon Hill, 31, 32 
Halle, 67 
Hannekin, 157 
Hanseatic League, 54, 245 
Hanseatic steelyard, 14 
Hanse Towns, 266, 267 
Harcourt, Count of, 164 
Harcourt, Geoffrey de, 107, 112, 

164, 165 



ITA 

Harcourt, Godfrey de, 165 
Hawking, 127, 176, 189, 208, 257, 

272-3 
Haydon, 10 
Hearth tax, 216, 223 
Helots, 212, 275 
Hennebon, 93, 97 
Henry I., 275 
Henry II., 275 

Henry III. of England, 14, 275 
Henry IV. of England, 26, 153 
Henry V., of England, 122, 162, 

192 
Henry IV. of Germany, 68 
Henry VII of Germany, 53 
Henry of Trastamare, 198, 201, 202, 

219, 221, 228 
Henry the Fowler, 53 
Herodotus, n, 257 
Herrings, 154, 266 
Herse (Harrow], 170 
Hertford Castle, 177 
Higden, 239, 257, 276 
Holland, 43 
Homage, 28, 32, 37, 38, 41, 71, 83, 

94, 99, 19 1 
Horses, 79, 102, 115, 137, 169, 190, 

208, 231 
Hostages, 191, 200 
Hu and crie, 23 
Hungary, 4, 50, 145 
Hunting, 176, 189 



TCELAND, 52 

JL Ich dien, 121 

Inez, 199 

Innocent III., 252 

Innocent VI., 180, 190, 193 

Interdict, 60, 68, 

Invasions, English, of Scotland, 25, 

26 > 3°, 33, 6 4, 7 1 , 8 °, 9 8 , x 57j t 59, 

161, 162, 188, 227, 230 
Invasions, French, 54, 65, 119, 121, 

221, 224, 232 
Invasions, Scotch, 9, 84, 123, 147, 

J 59 

Ireland, 6, 30, 44, 155,211-13 

Irish, 31 

Iron, 267 

Isabel of Castile, 200, 220 

Isabel of France, 192 

Isabel of France, Queen of Ed- 
ward II., 6-8, 15, 16, 19-22, 35-7, 
260 

Islip, Archbishop, 209 

Italy, 50 



288 



Index. 



JAC 

TACQUERIE, 2, 179, 183 

J James, the Conqueror, 47 

Janissaries, 5 

Jeanne de Montfort (see Montfort, 
Countess of) 

Jeanne de Penthievre, 92, 125, 196 

Jehan le bel V., 125, 132 

Jersey, 76 

Jews, 144, 178, 183 

Joan of England (sister of Edward 
III.), 15, 28 

Joan of England (daughter of Ed- 
ward III ), 57, 127, 147, 197 

Joan of Navarre, 36, 75 

John II., of France (previously 
Duke of Normandy), 46, 94, 105, 
106, 126, 157, 158, 163, 168, 172, 
176, 178, 191, 215 

John, King of Bohemia, 70, 71, no, 
119, 122 

John, King of England, 190, 252 

John of Norwich, 106 

John of Vienne, 130 

John XXII. (Pope), 15, 17, 18, 25, 
29, 36, 40-42, 48, 67 

Jongleurs, 181, 273 

Jousts, 23, 102 

Jubilee, 255 

Judges, 23, 88, 152, 237, 240 

Juliers, Margrave of, 58, 70 

Justice, administration of, 23, 78, 
271 

Justices of the Peace, 24, 133 



KEEPERS of the Peace, 23-4, 
i33 
Kenilworth Castle, 7 
Kennington, 255 
Kent, Earl of. 17 
Kent, Fair Maid of, 195, 255 
Kilkenny, Statute of, 211, 214 
Kinghorn, 26 
Knights and knighthood, 3, 10, 27, 

60, 72, 77, 102, 157, 177, 241, 264 
Knights of the Sword, 51 
Knolles, Sir Robert, 180, 196, 198, 

224 
Knyghton, 146 
Koran, 47 



LABOURERS 102, 140, 148, 245 
La Hogue, 107, 125 
Lancaster, Duke of (previously 
John of Gaunt) , (see Gaunt, John) 
Lancaster, Duke of (Wryneck), 



LYN 

(previously Earl of Derby and 

Earl of Lancaster), 7, 8, 17, 84, 

104, 106, 126, 127, 159, 165, 191, 

201, 206 
Lancaster, H. Earl of, 8, 17 
Lancaster, Thomas, Earl of, 7 
Lanercost, Abbey of, 123 
Langland, Robert, 65, 278 
Langue d' Oc, 275 
Languedoc, 104, 194, 219 
Langue d' Oil, 163, 178, 275 
Latimer, Lord, 242 
Latin, 257, 276 

Laws, 78, 79, 185, 209, 215, 244 
Lawyers, 153 
Leif, 52 

Leon, Bishop of, 96 
Leon, Henry of, 95 
Leon, Kingdom of, 47 
Leprosy, 9, 268 
Le Scrope, Sir R., 236 
L'Espagnols sur mer, 155 
Lewis of Bavaria, 4, 53, 58, 61, 673 

90, no 
Lewis of Spain, 94, 97, 156 
Life, shortness of, 16 
Limoges,*224, 225, 226 
Limousin, 166, 230 
Literature, 5, 274 
Lithuania, 50 
Livonia. 50 

Loire, River, 94, 166, 179, 191 
Lollards 250 
Lombard Street. 13 
Lombardy, 49, 54, 245 
London, 24, 65, 123, 146, 148, i6o„ 

241, 245 
Lord of the Sea, 43, 155, 238 
Lorraine, 62 
Lothians, 160 
Louis, Count of Flanders, 37, 55, 61, 

73, 103, 118, 127 
Louis, Count of Flanders (Le Male), 

73, no, 127 
Louis the Great of Hungary, 4, 50, 53 
Louis IX. (Saint) of France (set 

French Genealogy) 
Louis X. (Hutin) 35, 46, 75, 158 
Louis XL, 35 
Louvain, 57 
Louviers, 109 

Louvre, 95, 99, 165, 182, 186 
Low Countries, 69 
Lucretius, 143 
Luther, 251 

Lutterworth, 253, 254, 280 
Lynn, 266 



Index. 



289 



LYO 

Lyons, 42 

Lyons, Richard, 241, 246 



MAGYARS, 50 
Mahometans, 46, 47, 220 
Maie, River, 114 
Maine, 191 
Majorca, 90 
Malestroit, 98 
Maletolt, 76, 133 
Maltravers 22 
Malvern Hills, 278 
Mandeville, 257 
Manny, Sir W., 62, 97, 98, 104, 126, 

130, 190 
Mar, Earl of, 27, 31 
Marcel, Etienne, 180-88 
March, Countess of, 91 
March, Earl of, 27, 90 
Mare, Peter de la, 240, 255 
Marne, River, 232 
Marriages, 14, 15, 56, 61, 73, 127, 

154, 213, 268 
Marshalsea, 19 
Mary, Queen, 134 
Massagetae, 11 
Maupertuis, plains of, 167 
Meat, 12, 269 
Meaux, 184 
Mechlin, 57, 70 
Mediterranean, 47, 50, 52, 162 
Mendicants, 248, 279 
Merchants of the Staple, 154 
Merinos, 267 
Merlin, 115 
Merton College, 248 
Miauson, River, 167 
Milan, 192, 193, 218, 279 
Milton, 201, 280 
Moguls, 50 
Money, 13, 58, 64, 67, 72, 102, 180, 

192, 207 
Montacute, Lord, 19, 41, 58, 99 
Montfort, Countess of, 94-8, 158 
Montfort, Simon de, 277 
Montfort, Earl of, 96, 99, 162, 191, 

196 
Montfort, Earl of (son of the above) 

{see Brittany, Duke of) 
Montiel, Castle of, 221 
Montreuil, 39 

Montserrat, Marquis of, 193 
Moors, 27, 41, 46, 198, 220 
Moravia, 53 

Morbecq, Denys de, 173, 176 
Morgarten, 54 



ORD 

Morley, 80, 83 

Mortimer, 6, 8, 13, 15, ao, 23, 26, 

39 » 4 1 
Mortimer, Geoffrey, 20 
Mortmain, 237 
Moscow, 4, 50 
Moselle, 53 
Muhldorf, 53 
Murray, Sir A., 33, 90 
Murray, Randolph, Earl of, 9, 10, 

27 
Murray, Randolph, Earl of (second 

son of the former), 29, 123 
Mysteries, 209 
Mystery plays, 275 



NAJARILLA, River, 203 
Namur, Count of, 71 
Nantes, 93, 95, 98 
Naples, 22 
Navarre, 46, 158 

Navarre, King Consort of, 71, 158 
Navarrete, 2, 203-205 
Navy {see Fleet) 
Neville's Cross, 128, 135, 160 
Newcastle, 9, 30, 92 
New College, 247 
Newtown the Bold, 121 
Norfolk, 266 
Norfolk, Earl of, 17 
Norman conquest, 159, 265, 275 
Norman language, 275, 277 
Normandy, 43, 80, 107, 158-191, 

245 
Normandy, Duke of {see John II., 

of France, and Charles V., of 

France) 
Normandy, Ordinance of, 107, 122 
Northampton, Earl of, 104, 114, 118 
Northmen, 52 
Northumberland, 9 
Norway, 43, 51, 267 
Norwich, 146 
Norwich, John of, 106 
Nottingham, 20 
Novgorod, 50, 267 
Nursing, 155 



OCCLEVE, 269 
Ockham, William of, 67 
Octroi, 164 
Ogle, 22 
Oisemont, 112 
O'Neills, 213 
Ordinances, 211 



290 



Index. 



ORE 

Ore well, 65, 81 

Oriflamme, 116, 119, 129, 172 

Orleans, Duke of, 170, 192, 193 

Otho, 53 

Ottomans, 49 

Owen of Wales, 229 

Oxford, 107, 247, 251, 253 



PADILLA, Maria de, 197 
Pale, 212 
Palestine, 41 
Paris, 55, 72, 93-4, 159, 180, 182, 

189, 218, 224 
Parishes, 239 
Parish Priest, 28* 
Parliament, 7, 22, 28, 29, 37, 38, 40, 

41, 76, 87, 99, 185, 148, 160, 163, 

206, 221, 235, (the Good), 239, 

252, 264 
Parliamentnm Indoctum, 153 
Pastoureaux, 183 
Peace, the King's, 7, 24 
Peace, treaties of, 8, 14, 34, 41, 73, 

84, 91, 98, 135, 161, 175, 189, 190, 

231 
Pedro the Cruel, 156, 197, 204, 220, 

221 
Peers, 14, 21, 88 
Peers of France, 36, 93 
Peloponnesus, 50 
Pembroke, Earl of, 226, 229 
Percy, Lord, 255 
Perigord, 104 
Perigord, Cardinal, 168 
Perrers, Alice, 239, 242, 246, 256, 

260 
Perth, 26, 27, 91, 92 
Petitions, 79, 244 
Petrarch, 141, 188, 279 
Philip, Duke of Burgundy, 222 
Philip, II. (Augustus) of France, 191 
Philip III. of France, 16 
Philip IV. of France, 34, 158, 163 
Philip V. of France, 34 
Philip VI., of Valois, King of 

France, 30, 35, 36, 40, 42, 57, 58, 

65, 68, 71, 72, 76, 92, 109, 123, 156, 

158, 165 
Philip II. of Spain, 269 
Philip (le Hardi),son of King John 

of France, 172 
Philip of Navarre, 165, 181, 196 
Philippa, Queen of England, 15, 75, 

97, 107, 124, 127, 132, 239 
Picard, Sir H., 194 
Picardy, 160, 230 



REN 

Piers Ploughman (see Langland) 

Piracy, 50, 131 

Pitch, 267 

Poaching, 161 

Poissy, no, in 

Poitiers, 2, Battle of, 162-75, 206, 

229, 263 
Poland, 4, 50 
Policy, English, 14, 20, 27, 37, 41, 

44, 60, 100, 103, 107, 134, 158, 258 
Policy, French, 3, 4, 43, 76, 83, 101, 

122, 203 
Policy, German, 4, 66 
Policy, Scotch, 31, 33 
Poll tax, 150 
Polychronicon, 239, 257 
Pomerania, 50 
Ponthieu, 39 
Pontoise, in. 
Poor, 78, 184 
Poor Caitiff, 249 
Popes, 4, 29, 42, 47, 48, 61, 67, 101, 

152, 245, 251, 252, 279 
Popular rights, 5, 36, 72, 215, 216, 

239, 263 
Population, 148, 151 
Portsmouth, 65, 222, 230 
Portugal, 47, 199 
Praemunire, 252 

Prices, 59, 72, 102, 208, 209, 269 
Priories alien, 60, 245 
Provence, 47, 72, 141, 275, 
Provisors, 96, 152, 252 
Prussia, 50, 185 
Purveyors, 30, 78, 152 
Pyle of Liddell, 123 
Pyrenees, 46, 191, 199, 200, 201, 217, 

219 

QUEEN'S College, 107 
Quarter Sessions, 24 
Querci, 166 
Quimperle, 98 
Quixote, Don, 261 



RAGMAN Rolls, 15 
Ramah, 30 
Ransoms, 10, 22, 126, 161, 175, 179, 

191, 200, 218, 242 
Ravenspur, 26 
Reformation, 5, 101, 251-52, 276, 

279 
Regency, Council of, 7, 8, 13, 21, 34 
Regrators, 153 
Rennes, 92, 95 



Tnctex. 



291 



REN 

Renunciations, 192, 192, 217 

Republics of Italy, 5, 48, 49, 53, 
54 

Revenue, 30 

Revolution, French, 183 

Rheims, 187 

Rhyme of Sir Topaz, 261 

Ribeaumont, Eustache de, 130, 139, 
170 

Richard II., of England, 150, 195, 
243, 244, 259^ 

Robbers (see Companies) 

Robert II. of Scotland (the Stew- 
ard), 91, 123, 227 

Robert, King of Sicily, 48, 72 

Roche Derien, 125 

Rochelle, 228, 237 

Rokeby, Thomas of, 10 

Romance language, 52, 280 

Romance of the Rose, 275 

Romans, King of, 67, no, 191 

Rome, 52 

Rome, Court of {see Curia Romana) 

Romorantin, 166 

Roncesvalles, 201, 205 

Rouen, 109 

Round Table, 19, 102 

Roxburgh, 32 

Russia, 50, 266 

Ruwaert, 55, 103 



ST. Andrew's Abbey, 178 
St. Cloud, no 
St. Denys, no, 116, 172, 187 
St. Dominic, 248 
St. Francis, 248 
St. George, 171 
St. Germain, no 
St. Omer, 83, 127, 138 
St. Paul's, 18, 254 
St. Peter's, 68 
St. Pierre, Eustache, 131 
St. Vaste, 107 
Saintes, 40, 41, 229 
Salic law, 35, 36, 93 
Salisbury, 17, 22 
Salisbury, Countess of, 137 
Salisbury, Earl of, 58, 91, 101 
Salmon, 154 
Salt tax, 164 

Sancho, King of Spain, 156 
Sandgatte Hills, 129 
Sandwich, 14, 65, 156, 176, 189, 229 
Saracens, 41, 49, 245 
Sardinia, 48 
Savoy, 54, xi8 



STY 

Savoy Palace, 177, 194 

Saxon Chronicle, 264, 275 

Saxons, 52 

Scheldt, River, 59, 71 

Schoolmen, 67, 258 

Schwartz, Michael, 128 

Schwyz, 54 

Scone, 28 

Scotland, 6, 8-13, 25, 35, 45, 74, 84, 

124, 160 
Scurvy, 268 
Seal, Great, 88, 222 
Seine, River, 109, no, 179 
Selkirk, 147 
Sempach, 54 
Senchus Mor, 214 
Servia, 5, 50 
Severn, River, 254 
Seville, 47, 199, 205 
Shakespeare, 122, 280 
Sheep, 267 

Sheriffs, 60, 70, 77, 78, 80, 148 
Shirley, 254 
Sicily, 43, 48, 141 
Silk, 267 
Skinburness, 10 
Sluys (battle of, 80-2) 103, 156, 

259 
Socage, 268 
Somerset, 147 
Somme, River, 111 
Songs, 156, 257, 273, 274 
Southampton, 14, 66 
Southwark, 177 

Spain, 46, 159, 190, 216, 219, 267 
Spies, 245 
Spires, no 
Spittle Croft, 146 
Stanhope Park, 12 
Staples, 57, 134, 154, 206, 210 
States-General, 163, 178, 180, 186, 

223 
Statutes, 63, 80, 88, 151, 152, 153, 

210, 245 
Stephen, King, 275 
Steward, the, 91, 124, 227 
Stirling. 91, 92 
Stockfish, 154 
Stone of Scone, 15 
Stourbridge, 267 
Stowe, 146 
Strasbourg, 145 
Stratford, John, 64, 70-75, 80, 84, 

85-9 
Stratford, Robert, 85 
Stretch-neck, 153 
Styria, 70 



292 



Index. 



SUB 

Subsidies voted to King, 29, 77, 122, 

160, 221, 238, 240 
Subsidies paid to foreign powers, 

13, 58, 66, 67, 20X 
Sumptuary Laws, aoi 
Sweden, 51 
Swift, River, 254 
Switzerland, 54 
Syria, 47 

TACTICS, 9, 31, 72, 108, 114, 
169-70, 172, 196, 229, 258 
Talleyrand, Cardinal, 168 
Tallow, 266, 274 
Tartars, 4, 50 
Taxes, 3, 30, 59, 76, 86, 99, 180, 207, 

216, 223, 238-44 
Tay, River, 27, 91 
Tello, Don, 202, 203 
Tenant-farming, 140, 152 
Tennyson, 280 
Testament of Love, 277 
Tetzel, 250 
Teutonic Knights, 51 
Thames, River, 58, 66, 85, 245 
Thorpe, Sir R., 236 
Thouars, 229 
Thucydides, 143 
Toledo, 219, 220 
Tomyris, 11 
Toulouse, 46, 106 
Touraine, 191 
Tournai, 73, 83, 84, 86 
Tournaments, 1, 19, 136 
Tower of London, 20, 85, 124, 158 
Trade, 5, 37, 62, 134, 153-4, i 94> 

206-208, 265 
Travelling, 23, 208 
Traylbaston, 24 
Treason, 152 

Treves, Archbishop of, 67 
Trevisa, 277 
Troubadours, 275 
Trouveres, 275, 278 
Troyes, 230 
Tudors, 49 
Turks, 5, 49 
Tuscany, 49 
Tweed, 90 
Tyburn, 22 
Tyne, 10 

ULSTER, 212 
Ulster, Earl of, 213 
Underwalden, 54 
Ural Mountains, 50 



WIS 

Urban V., 198, 226 
Uri, 54 

VANNES, 93, 97 
Vaut-parlour, 240 
Vasilovitz, Ivan, 50 
Vaugirard, in 
Vegetables, 266 
Venice, 267 
Vermandois, 232 
Vesconti, {see Galeazzo) 
Vicar-General, 69, 90 
Vienne, John de, 128 
Vienne, River, 166, 223 
Vierzon, 166 

Villains, 150, 184, 266, 268 
Villani, J., vi., 13, 128 
Villani, M., vi., 177 
Vincennes, Bois de, 40 
Vintry, 194 

Violante of Milan, 218 
Virgil, Polydore, 137 
Vironfosse, 71 
Vittoria, 202 



WACE, 278 
Wadicourt, 114 
Wages, 148, 149, 266 
Wallachia, 5 

Walsingham, 135, 231 ' 

Wardrobe Book, 69 
Warwick, Earl of, 112, 115 
Wat Tyler, 140 
Wax, 274 

Ways and Means, 29, 59, 73, 79 
Wear, River, n 
Weights and Measures, 79, 78 
Welsh, 30, 31, 65, 71, 115, 118, 179 
Wenceslaus, 192 
Wesley, John, 250 
Westminster, 21, 38, 99, 235 
Westminster Abbey, 15 
Westminster, Palace of, 24, 38, 87, 

243 
Wheat, 238, 269 
Wiclif, 236, 247, 248, 250, 254, 269, 

279, 281 
Wight, Isle of, 44 
William I., 1, 259, 264, 275 
Winchester, 17, 18 
Winchester School, 247 
Winchester, Statute of, 23 
Windows, 272 
Windsor, 94, 102, 177, 247 
Wine, 64, 154, 208, 209, 273 
Wissant, 129 



Index. 



293 



WOO 

Wool, 56, 57, 59, 60, 76, 77, 129, 151, 

154, 207, 245, 265, 266 
Worcestershire, 267 
Worsted, 129, 207 
Wykeham, William of, 235, 237, 246, 

255 

YARMOUTH, 14?, 266 
Yeomen, 268 



ZUY 

York, 9, 14, 16, 29 
Ypres, 103 



ZEALAND, 84 
Zuyder, Zee, 52 



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LL. D., ex-President of Cornell University. 
THE EPOCH OF REFORM. 1830-1850. By Justin McCarthy. 



EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 

A SERIES OF BOOKS NARRATING THE HISTORY OF 

GREECE AND ROME, AND OF THEIR RELATIONS TO 

OTHER COUNTRIES AT SUCCESSIVE EPOCHS. 

Edited by 

Rev. G. W. Cox and Charles Sankey, M.A. 

Eleven volumes, i6mo, with 41 Maps and Plans. 

Sold separately. Price per vol., $1.00. 

The Set, Roxburgh style, gilt top, in box, $11.00. 

TROY— ITS LEGEND, HISTORY, AND LITERATURE. By 
S. G. W. Benjamin. 

THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS. By the Rev. G. W. Cox. 

THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE— From the Flight of Xerxes to the 
Fall of Athens. By the Rev. G. W. Cox. 

THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES. By Charles 
Sankey, M.A. 

THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE— Its Rise and Culmination t. the 
Death of Alexander the Great By A. M. Curteis, M.A. 

The five volumes above give a connected and complete history 
of Greece from the earliest times to the death of Alexander. 

EARLY ROME— From the Foundation of the City to its Destruc- 
tion by the Gauls. By W. Ihne, Ph.D. 

ROME AND CARTHAGE— The Punic Wars. By R. Bosworth 
Smith, M.A. 

THE GRACCHI, MARIUS, AND SULLA. By A. H. Beesly, M.A. 

THE ROMAN TRIUMVIRATES. By the Very Rev. Charles 
Merivale, D.D. 

THE EARLY EMPIRE — From the Assassination of Julius Caesar 
to the Assassination of Domitian. By the Rev. W. Wolfe 
Capes, M.A. 

THE AGE OF THE ANTON I NES— the Roman Empire of the 
Second Century. By the Rev. W. Wolfe Capes, M.A. 

The six volumes above give the History of Rome from tkt 
founding of the City to the death of Marcus A melius Antoninus. 



A New Edition, Library Style. 



W$ Ijssforg of jRomp, 

FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE 

By Dr. THEODOR MOMMSEN. 

Translated, with the author's sanction and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Regva* 
Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical Examiner of 
the University of St. Andrews. With an introduction by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, and 
a copious Index of the whole four volumes, prepared especially for this edition. 

REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION. 
Four Volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per Set, $8.00. 



Dr. Mommsen has long been known and appreciated through his re- 
searches into the languages, laws, and institutions of Ancient Rome and 
Italy, as the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these depart- 
ments of historical investigation. To a wonderfully exact and exhaustive 
knowledge of these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a 
vigorous, spirited, and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical pow- 
ers, which give this history a degree of interest and a permanent value 
possessed by no other record of the decline and fall of the Roman Com- 
monwealth. "Dr. Mommsen's work/' as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the 
introduction, " though the production of a man of most profound and ex- 
tensive learning and knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for 
the professional scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take 
an interest in the history of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek 
information that m^.y guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of 
modern history." 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

* A work of the very highest merit ; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative full 
of genius and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place oa 
record our opinion that Dr. Mommsen's is by far the best history of the Decline and F-Ji 
of the Roman Commonwealth." — London Times. 

" This is the best history of the Roman Republic, taking the work on the whole — the 
yithor's complete mastery of his subject, the variety of his gifts and acquirements, his 
graphic power in the delineation of national and individual character, and the vivid interest 
which he inspires in every portion of his book. He is without an equal in his own sphere.''- 
"-Edinburgh Reviczv. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



A Nezv Edition, Library Style. 



%\* Ijfisfopg of (Jrwp, 

By Prof. Dr. ERNST CURTIUS. 

Translated by Adolphus William Ward, M. A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, Can* 
bridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester. 

UNIFORM WITH MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME, 
rive volHmes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per set, $10.00. 



Curtius's History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen's 
History of Rome, with which it deserves to rank in every respect as one of 
the great masterpieces of historical literature. Avoiding the minute de- 
tails which overburden other similar works, it groups together in a very 
picturesque manner all the important events in the history of this king- 
dom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's 
civilization. The narrative of Prof. Curtius's work is flowing and ani- 
mated, and the generalizations, although bold, are philosophical and 
sound. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

** Professor Curtius's eminent scholarship is a sufficient guarantee for the trustworthiness 
i of his history, while the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of narrat- 
ing them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. Prof. Curtius eveiywhere 
[ maintains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are 
I on the side of justice, humanity, and progress" — Lottdon Athenaum. 

M We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius's book better than by saying that it may 
be fitly ranked with Theodor Mommsen's great work." — London Spectator. 

"As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to 
the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of 
statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of ihe 
age." — N. Y. Daily Tribune. 

" The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of 
the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instruct- 
ive branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts 
for their education. This translation ought to become a regular part of the accepted course 
of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political 
life of our country." — N. Y. Evening Post. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York 



Sterling Biographies. ' 

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